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On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out.
Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all.
And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy.
Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed.
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On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
When 8.5% of the labor force is unemployed, if the government pays them to build a bridge, then the government has created jobs.
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On January 29 2012 12:15 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment. When 8.5% of the labor force is unemployed, if the government pays them to build a bridge, then the government has created jobs.
Did you not read any of the posts a few further up?
Try to read liberal's.
Let me start the thought process: From where does the government conjure up the ability to "create" jobs? Ie., where does the money come from?
If you follow that throught process you will see how the government doesn't "create" jobs.
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On January 29 2012 12:18 AcuWill wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 12:15 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment. When 8.5% of the labor force is unemployed, if the government pays them to build a bridge, then the government has created jobs. Did you not read any of the posts a few further up? Try to read liberal's. Let me start the thought process: From where does the government conjure up the ability to "create" jobs? Ie., where does the money come from? If you follow that throught process you will see how the government doesn't "create" jobs.
The money is borrowed. If you're making the following argument:
"First, if money is not going to be printed, it has to come from somewhere. If the government borrows a dollar from you, that is a dollar that you do not spend, or that you do not lend to a company to spend on new investment. Every dollar of increased government spending must correspond to one less dollar of private spending. Jobs created by stimulus spending are offset by jobs lost from the decline in private spending. We can build roads instead of factories, but fiscal stimulus can’t help us to build more of both . This form of “crowding out” is just accounting, and doesn't rest on any perceptions or behavioral assumptions."
From: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/papers/fiscal2.htm
Then it has been disprove. See: http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2012/01/mistakes-and-ideology-in-macroeconomics.html
And even retracted: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2012/01/stimulus-and-etiquette.html
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The thought process behing it all is that the gov't is borrowing the money or paying with it from taxes, creating jobs (getting some money back via taxes) and then recouing all losses from incerased trade taxes because the road is supposedly going to be used. People use it, establish trade b/c it's easier to move between locations, etc
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On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed.
No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it).
It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole.
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United States7483 Posts
On January 29 2012 12:33 bUbUsHeD wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed. No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it). It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole.
Taxes =/= stealing.
The entire point of government is to solve the issue of Tragedy of the Commons.
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I finally know who I'm voting for!
donaldbenjaminforpresident.com/
From his website, I give you some of the best (and most of) planks that make up his platform:
+ Show Spoiler +2. I will serve for four years at a fixed salary of $73,423.16 per year not including the use of Air Force One which is a really cool plane.
3. No new laws shall be passed until all the old laws are fixed.
4. All government agencies will be required to reduce their primary forms to a single page. To assist in this rewrite, community college English instructors from throughout the nation will be invited to critique each document reviewing them for awkwardness, usage, legalese, moronic repetitiveness, hyperbole, ambiguity, paradox, contradiction, inconsistency, and toxicity. All government documents must eventually conform but first to be condensed will be protracted and confusing forms with which the public is currently obliged to struggle: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), income tax forms, applications for veteran’s benefits, and applications for social security benefits.
5. I pledge to work with colleagues across the political spectrum. I am recanting some of my earlier unkind remarks about Congress though I remain deeply disappointed in their partisan bickering. For example, I originally proposed that Congress go home for two years without pay while a group of sixth graders--chosen based upon deportment and attendance--operated the legislative branch in their place. That still seems like a good idea since the sixth graders would do a much better job, however I'm confident voters will select more responsible representatives in November so let's hope the next batch will do better. If not...sixth graders, prepare to be called upon. In closing, I suggest the Senate actually plan on meeting in the future since I will be taking attendance.
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On January 29 2012 13:11 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 12:33 bUbUsHeD wrote:On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed. No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it). It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole. Taxes =/= stealing. The entire point of government is to solve the issue of Tragedy of the Commons.
Government, at least in its current form, does the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. The current socialist, collectivist trends create an entity that is quick to reject the idea of personal property in favor of shared or public property. Thus, to say that a government's role is to prevent over-consumption of a shared resource is not true. It is an enabler of the so called tragedy of commons. Not to mention the possibility of government acting in its own self-interest or through favoritism, which happens to be reality.
But to some extent, I agree with you. If government is to exist, then its role is to prevent the tragedy of commons by acting as the protector of individual liberties and private property. And since I subscribe to the belief that money earned through one's own productive achievement also belongs solely to that individual, then government's role is to protect that man and his money from the coercion of others.
If you can think of a term more appropriate than "theft" for the forceful coercion of taking an individual's money and time, then be my guest.
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On January 29 2012 14:31 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 13:11 Whitewing wrote:On January 29 2012 12:33 bUbUsHeD wrote:On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed. No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it). It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole. Taxes =/= stealing. The entire point of government is to solve the issue of Tragedy of the Commons. Government, at least in its current form, does the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. The current socialist, collectivist trends create an entity that is quick to reject the idea of personal property in favor of shared or public property. Thus, to say that a government's role is to prevent over-consumption of a shared resource is not true. It is an enabler of the so called tragedy of commons. Not to metion the possibility of government acting in its own self-interest or through favoritism, which happens to be reality. But to some extent, I agree with you. If government is to exist, then its role is to prevent the tragedy of commons by acting as the protector of individual liberties and private property. And since I subscribe to the belief that money earned through one's own productive achievement also belongs solely to that individual, then government's role is to protect that man and his money from the coercion of others. If you can think of a term more appropriate than "theft" for the forceful coercion of taking an individual's money and time, then be my guest.
Taxes are the price people pay to live in a civilised society, though the maintenance of civilisation depends on the wise use of the revenues gained. Sadly, in the western world, we spend that money to enable pathological behaviour and penalise, whether directly or indirectly, behaviours that are beneficial to civil society.
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On January 29 2012 14:31 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 13:11 Whitewing wrote:On January 29 2012 12:33 bUbUsHeD wrote:On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed. No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it). It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole. Taxes =/= stealing. The entire point of government is to solve the issue of Tragedy of the Commons. Government, at least in its current form, does the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. The current socialist, collectivist trends create an entity that is quick to reject the idea of personal property in favor of shared or public property. Thus, to say that a government's role is to prevent over-consumption of a shared resource is not true. It is an enabler of the so called tragedy of commons. Not to metion the possibility of government acting in its own self-interest or through favoritism, which happens to be reality. But to some extent, I agree with you. If government is to exist, then its role is to prevent the tragedy of commons by acting as the protector of individual liberties and private property. And since I subscribe to the belief that money earned through one's own productive achievement also belongs solely to that individual, then government's role is to protect that man and his money from the coercion of others. If you can think of a term more appropriate than "theft" for the forceful coercion of taking an individual's money and time, then be my guest.
Theft refers to unlawful taking. Taxes are legal.
It is like referring to self defense as murder or killing during war assassination; they don't carry the same legal weight.
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On January 29 2012 14:49 vetinari wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 14:31 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On January 29 2012 13:11 Whitewing wrote:On January 29 2012 12:33 bUbUsHeD wrote:On January 29 2012 12:08 paralleluniverse wrote:On January 29 2012 06:08 Hider wrote:On January 29 2012 05:53 liberal wrote:
The simple fact of the matter is the government isn't able to create jobs, only to transfer jobs, and isn't able to create wealth, only transfer wealth. The jobs that were "created" when they were transferred from somewhere else are always visible, which is why people have the mistaken belief that the government actually is capable of creating jobs. What people don't see are the jobs which have been destroyed to create those new jobs, destroyed in the present through taxation and relative inefficiency, and destroyed in the future through payments on our debt and market corrections of over-investment.
The recession in the US is simply the destruction of jobs which were transferred to the past, but people can't see it in that light. The government's fiscal policies have been designed to foster over-investment in the economy, by setting the interest rates artificially low, by maintaining permanent inflation, by setting the fractional-reserve ratio, by insuring against losses ie. government backed mortgages, by fostering the expansion of credit and increased lending, etc. etc.
The government's policies created the housing bubble in order to escape the recession in 2001. We are simply feeling the effects of those policies today. And no, clearly this artificial boom/bust cycle is NOT healthy for an economy. It continues to consolidate wealth, which is then used as a justification to... get this.... EXPAND the governments control of the economy. All roads lead to Rome. Well to be fair to the keynesians, I think most of them are aware (or at least i hope so), that the value of the jobs they are creating doesn't have the same value as the jobs created by the market. Their throught proces is most likely that government that governmen through its fiscal policies programs can increase aggregate demand which increases employment. But the main problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn't make sense to have think in terms of aggregate sizes, since some industries need to fire employed and others need to hire, and some even need to die. Fiscal policies only prolonged (while indebting) the crises. Keynesians also dont think the same way of the boom/bust cycles as the austrians does, as they actually think the boom's are healthy (which it isn't as you point out). But the boom is just a proces of malinvestments (haircut industry), which is due to the mismatch between savings and investments, which again is due to the Fractionel-reserve, interest rate policies as you point out. Jobs create by stimulus has more value than no jobs at all. And Keynesians don't view booms as healthy, they view it as one of the two extremes of the business cycle that should be smoothed by monetary policy or fiscal policy. Most economists believe that monetary policy should be used in the first instance, but monetary policy has hit a snag at the zero lower bound so fiscal policy is needed. No they don't. In order to create a government job it is necessary to destroy real productive capacity in the economy by stealing money from people who produce things that others are actually buying on the market (and thus want it more than whatever government is going to do with the money because otherwise to market would already have been providing it). It is a worse state of things by definition to have people producing things by government decree and wealth transfer instead of having them produce things others are voluntarily buying and thus expressing their preferences. If a job doesn't exist on a free market it's because it's marginal product is not higher than the labor cost and it drains resources from the economy instead of adding them. Forcing government jobs is just a resource drain on society as a whole. Taxes =/= stealing. The entire point of government is to solve the issue of Tragedy of the Commons. Government, at least in its current form, does the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. The current socialist, collectivist trends create an entity that is quick to reject the idea of personal property in favor of shared or public property. Thus, to say that a government's role is to prevent over-consumption of a shared resource is not true. It is an enabler of the so called tragedy of commons. Not to metion the possibility of government acting in its own self-interest or through favoritism, which happens to be reality. But to some extent, I agree with you. If government is to exist, then its role is to prevent the tragedy of commons by acting as the protector of individual liberties and private property. And since I subscribe to the belief that money earned through one's own productive achievement also belongs solely to that individual, then government's role is to protect that man and his money from the coercion of others. If you can think of a term more appropriate than "theft" for the forceful coercion of taking an individual's money and time, then be my guest. Taxes are the price people pay to live in a civilised society, though the maintenance of civilisation depends on the wise use of the revenues gained. Sadly, in the western world, we spend that money to enable pathological behaviour and penalise, whether directly or indirectly, behaviours that are beneficial to civil society.
But a government never spends as beneficially as an individual spending on his own behalf. By definition, a centrally planned system functions by drawing averages and making generalizations about what is "best" for vast quantities of people. It would seem that you think this idealistic. Or perhaps you believe others have greater claim to your money and livelihood than your self?
And since we're talking about the tragedy of commons, Mises had a great point about what I mentioned earlier:
"If land is not owned by anybody, although legal formalism may call it public property, it is used without any regard to the disadvantages resulting. Those who are in a position to appropriate to themselves the returns — lumber and game of the forests, fish of the water areas, and mineral deposits of the subsoil — do not bother about the later effects of their mode of exploitation. For them, erosion of the soil, depletion of the exhaustible resources and other impairments of the future utilization are external costs not entering into their calculation of input and output. They cut down trees without any regard for fresh shoots or reforestation. In hunting and fishing, they do not shrink from methods preventing the repopulation of the hunting and fishing grounds"
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On January 29 2012 14:50 Romantic wrote:
Theft refers to unlawful taking. Taxes are legal.
It is like referring to self defense as murder or killing during war assassination; they don't carry the same legal weight.
Legality often has no basis in reason or logic. The criminalization of marijuana is just one of hundreds of laws that exist because of past lobbying or a bias towards judeo-christian morals. I thought we were discussing ideals here anyway?
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Wait, sure you can argue that taxes are a form of stealing. But the thing is pretty much every society since the beginning of civilization treated taxes as morally right. Also its pretty stupid to make a broad sweeping statement about the entire judicial system based on one thing.
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On January 29 2012 15:04 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2012 14:50 Romantic wrote:
Theft refers to unlawful taking. Taxes are legal.
It is like referring to self defense as murder or killing during war assassination; they don't carry the same legal weight. Legality often has no basis in reason or logic. The criminalization of marijuana is just one of hundreds of laws that exist because of past lobbying or a bias towards judeo-christian morals. I thought we were talking ideals here anyway?
The definition of theft is not a morality inspired definition. Whatever you would like to call taxes they do not meet the normal definition of theft.
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Fair enough. I shall henceforth refer to it as "forceful coercion of money from an unwilling individual."
And theft is a morally-derived definition. But on the basis of one's ideas on personal property.
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On January 29 2012 15:17 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:
Fair enough. I shall henceforth refer to it as "forceful coercion of money from an unwilling individual."
And theft is a morally-derived definition. But on the basis of one's ideas on personal property.
I would have just used "Misapropriated Funds", since I would have preferred my taxes to be poured into other things.
If only we could have a giant checklist of stuff, and the tax money collected from us would ONLY be spent on that stuff...
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United States5162 Posts
Just so I know exactly where you stand; if taxes are forceful coercion from an unwilling individual, does that mean democracies and republics are all tyrannies of the majority? I ask since, theoretically, it's the feeling of the majority of society that taxes are needed and useful since they're enacted through a democratic/republic process.
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On January 29 2012 15:37 Myles wrote:
Just so I know exactly where you stand; if taxes are forceful coercion from an unwilling individual, does that mean democracies and republics are all tyrannies of the majority? I ask since, theoretically, it's the feeling of the majority of society that taxes are needed and useful since they're enacted through a democratic/republic process.
My view is such that one's interests are best represented as the number of people decreases. If you find yourself amongst 10 people, then surely you are better represented than if you were amongst 100 people. But with man as a social being and typically not possessing a wide enough skill set to be fully self-sustaining in this modern day, he may engage in the mutual trade of goods or services in what I believe to be a non zero-sum game.
Anarcho-capitalism, as described by Rothbard and others, is my ideal. If I am to be practical, then I am a proponent of minarchism as described by Milton Friedman.
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On January 29 2012 14:09 Mordanis wrote:I finally know who I'm voting for! donaldbenjaminforpresident.com/ From his website, I give you some of the best (and most of) planks that make up his platform: + Show Spoiler +2. I will serve for four years at a fixed salary of $73,423.16 per year not including the use of Air Force One which is a really cool plane.
3. No new laws shall be passed until all the old laws are fixed.
4. All government agencies will be required to reduce their primary forms to a single page. To assist in this rewrite, community college English instructors from throughout the nation will be invited to critique each document reviewing them for awkwardness, usage, legalese, moronic repetitiveness, hyperbole, ambiguity, paradox, contradiction, inconsistency, and toxicity. All government documents must eventually conform but first to be condensed will be protracted and confusing forms with which the public is currently obliged to struggle: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), income tax forms, applications for veteran’s benefits, and applications for social security benefits.
5. I pledge to work with colleagues across the political spectrum. I am recanting some of my earlier unkind remarks about Congress though I remain deeply disappointed in their partisan bickering. For example, I originally proposed that Congress go home for two years without pay while a group of sixth graders--chosen based upon deportment and attendance--operated the legislative branch in their place. That still seems like a good idea since the sixth graders would do a much better job, however I'm confident voters will select more responsible representatives in November so let's hope the next batch will do better. If not...sixth graders, prepare to be called upon. In closing, I suggest the Senate actually plan on meeting in the future since I will be taking attendance.
Ron Paul is taking a lot less money than that guy at about $39,000. So, why not vote for someone that actually has a better chance?
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EPT
