On April 24 2012 02:56 Kukaracha wrote: You didn't understand what I said. I said that to stop immigration, and in particular illegal immigration, there is no other short term solution than violence. This is why people in Calas, or if you want to be picky about it, Saint-Denis, have a hard life, because it's the people's barrier to foreigners. To decrease drastically illegal immigration, you need to drastically raise violence.
This is NOT what I want, but this is how it works. If you refuse citizenship to people who were born in this country, then they become sub-citizens. It's a form of violence. It's all done to discourage migrations towards our territory. And foreigners can only legally stay in France for a short period of time unless they obtain a visa. What happens when it expires? They have to be physically expelled from the country. Reducing the number of people allowed to become French would require to send back "home" thousands and thousands of people.
So, yes, any of those problems quoted above end up with violence, because violence is the easiest way to force or prevent migrations.
And yes, it's important in Le Pen's campaign, where you often hear the phrase "la France aux français", which translates to "France belongs to the French", implying that the country belongs to white people who have lived here for an arbitrary amount of generations. They are close to the Vlaams Belang too. I don't see how you can deny that.
Ye sure, violence is at the origins of each country on the planet. It's through violence that France unified itself, and defended its borders and sovereignty through history.
Borders are actually what define countries, and once people stop fighting for their owns, they get crossed, and the natives get either annihilated, conquered or colonized.
Nothing wrong with immigration, the problem is the Welfare State which subdizies and encourages the poor of the world rushing into the country, which results in a heavy drain of the countries prosperity and wealth. So, then, what's the answer? Get rid of the Welfare System. The last thing you want is a Welfare State and a Police State. As long as that incentive is there to come into your country no matter what (surely better to be in a French prison with food and shelter than languishing in a third world hell hole or more than likely on the dole without need of work and toil), then if you want to stop the flood of people it requires massive violence and Police State. Not desirable. Immigration in sustainable numbers (e.g. without a Welfare State) is highly desirable and wanted.
Open borders + Welfare State = a disaster. Welfare State + Police State = disaster. Open borders + No Welfare State = healthy & desirable.
Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
On April 24 2012 02:56 Kukaracha wrote: You didn't understand what I said. I said that to stop immigration, and in particular illegal immigration, there is no other short term solution than violence. This is why people in Calas, or if you want to be picky about it, Saint-Denis, have a hard life, because it's the people's barrier to foreigners. To decrease drastically illegal immigration, you need to drastically raise violence.
This is NOT what I want, but this is how it works. If you refuse citizenship to people who were born in this country, then they become sub-citizens. It's a form of violence. It's all done to discourage migrations towards our territory. And foreigners can only legally stay in France for a short period of time unless they obtain a visa. What happens when it expires? They have to be physically expelled from the country. Reducing the number of people allowed to become French would require to send back "home" thousands and thousands of people.
So, yes, any of those problems quoted above end up with violence, because violence is the easiest way to force or prevent migrations.
And yes, it's important in Le Pen's campaign, where you often hear the phrase "la France aux français", which translates to "France belongs to the French", implying that the country belongs to white people who have lived here for an arbitrary amount of generations. They are close to the Vlaams Belang too. I don't see how you can deny that.
Ye sure, violence is at the origins of each country on the planet. It's through violence that France unified itself, and defended its borders and sovereignty through history.
Borders are actually what define countries, and once people stop fighting for their owns, they get crossed, and the natives get either annihilated, conquered or colonized.
Nothing wrong with immigration, the problem is the Welfare State which subdizies and encourages the poor of the world rushing into the country, which results in a heavy drain of the countries prosperity and wealth. So, then, what's the answer? Get rid of the Welfare System. The last thing you want is a Welfare State and a Police State. As long as that incentive is there to come into your country no matter what (surely better to be in a French prison with food and shelter than languishing in a third world hell hole or more than likely on the dole without need of work and toil), then if you want to stop the flood of people it requires massive violence and Police State. Not desirable. Immigration in sustainable numbers (e.g. without a Welfare State) is highly desirable and wanted.
Open borders + Welfare State = a disaster. Welfare State + Police State = disaster. Open borders + No Welfare State = healthy & desirable.
Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
1940s?
That's the era of the greatest fiscal stimulus in the history of Earth -- World War II. If the 1940s were evidence of anything, it's Keynesian Economics.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
Perhaps poor communication, but I should clarify my remarks were about 1870 to early 1900s. I'd say the American West in the 1800s was pretty much close to it as possible, but the point being isn't that it is perfect, but it is better than all other alternatives. Libertarianism is not a utopian ideology, as much as you would like to strawman, unlike Communism / Socialism which is completely utopian. I mean, hell, the Socialist Man -- changing the nature of man. Good luck with that one.
In any event, by any measures a freer society is a more prosperous society, with less violence and more cooperation. I know Socialists always like to avoid and completely dismiss the violence that is the State, but it is not avoidable. The tax man cometh and taketh and if ye shall dissent ye shall either get lead or thrown in a cage. Lovely.
Free market doesn't assume anything, and as for monopolies they cannot exist in the absence of the State or a similar institution because the definition of a monopoly prohibits it as such. Read up on the etymology and use of the word. It has described a Government writ of immunity and privilege since its inception and it wasn't until the last Century that it has been bastardized beyond any utility.
The reason why the market is the most efficient (and hardly anyone argues this point) is because it most reflects reality, as in the actual price of goods, services, and labor. It reflects supply and demands and best accomodates the wants of the masses. The State on the contrary serves as always a privileged Elite and its attendant vestiges. It distorts prices through subsidies, price / wage / rent controls, and other interventions into the economy. This is why depressions and recessions occur and last so long as prices can never reflect reality and the allocation of resources are distorted causing massive unemployment and waste.
Never mind the fact that running to an Institution which killed over 200 million in the 20th Century alone is pretty fucking retarded to begin with.
Ye sure, violence is at the origins of each country on the planet. It's through violence that France unified itself, and defended its borders and sovereignty through history.
Borders are actually what define countries, and once people stop fighting for their owns, they get crossed, and the natives get either annihilated, conquered or colonized.
Nothing wrong with immigration, the problem is the Welfare State which subdizies and encourages the poor of the world rushing into the country, which results in a heavy drain of the countries prosperity and wealth. So, then, what's the answer? Get rid of the Welfare System. The last thing you want is a Welfare State and a Police State. As long as that incentive is there to come into your country no matter what (surely better to be in a French prison with food and shelter than languishing in a third world hell hole or more than likely on the dole without need of work and toil), then if you want to stop the flood of people it requires massive violence and Police State. Not desirable. Immigration in sustainable numbers (e.g. without a Welfare State) is highly desirable and wanted.
Open borders + Welfare State = a disaster. Welfare State + Police State = disaster. Open borders + No Welfare State = healthy & desirable.
Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
1940s?
That's the era of the greatest fiscal stimulus in the history of Earth -- World War II. If the 1940s were evidence of anything, it's Keynesian Economics.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
Perhaps poor communication, but I should clarify my remarks were about 1870 to early 1900s. I'd say the American West in the 1800s was pretty much close to it as possible, but the point being isn't that it is perfect, but it is better than all other alternatives. Libertarianism is not a utopian ideology, as much as you would like to strawman, unlike Communism / Socialism which is completely utopian. I mean, hell, the Socialist Man -- changing the nature of man. Good luck with that one.
In any event, by any measures a freer society is a more prosperous society, with less violence and more cooperation. I know Socialists always like to avoid and completely dismiss the violence that is the State, but it is not avoidable. The tax man cometh and taketh and if ye shall dissent ye shall either get lead or thrown in a cage. Lovely.
Free market doesn't assume anything, and as for monopolies they cannot exist in the absence of the State or a similar institution because the definition of a monopoly prohibits it as such. Read up on the etymology and use of the word. It has described a Government writ of immunity and privilege since its inception and it wasn't until the last Century that it has been bastardized beyond any utility.
The reason why the market is the most efficient (and hardly anyone argues this point) is because it most reflects reality, as in the actual price of goods, services, and labor. It reflects supply and demands and best accomodates the wants of the masses. The State on the contrary serves as always a privileged Elite and its attendant vestiges. It distorts prices through subsidies, price / wage / rent controls, and other interventions into the economy. This is why depressions and recessions occur and last so long as prices can never reflect reality and the allocation of resources are distorted causing massive unemployment and waste.
Never mind the fact that running to an Institution which killed over 200 million in the 20th Century alone is pretty fucking retarded to begin with.
You have absolutely no evidence that free markets are efficient in the real world. The efficiency of free markets is simply an article of faith.
The efficiency of free markets is based on purely theoretical deductions which assumes, amongst other things, that there's no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. I'm not arguing semantics and definitions. I'm arguing about the conditions that are necessary for a free market to be efficient.
Since these assumptions do not hold in reality, the efficiency of free markets does not hold. As a result, real free markets, i.e. unregulated markets, are subject to frequent market failures, so that government policies are needed to correct for these failures.
In fact, a perfect example of this is in the 1870s, the era which you cited, before the Federal Reserve, whereby simply a rumor could cause a bank run, i.e. the collapse of a bank. Moreover, this was the reason the Fed was created:
Nothing wrong with immigration, the problem is the Welfare State which subdizies and encourages the poor of the world rushing into the country, which results in a heavy drain of the countries prosperity and wealth. So, then, what's the answer? Get rid of the Welfare System. The last thing you want is a Welfare State and a Police State. As long as that incentive is there to come into your country no matter what (surely better to be in a French prison with food and shelter than languishing in a third world hell hole or more than likely on the dole without need of work and toil), then if you want to stop the flood of people it requires massive violence and Police State. Not desirable. Immigration in sustainable numbers (e.g. without a Welfare State) is highly desirable and wanted.
Open borders + Welfare State = a disaster. Welfare State + Police State = disaster. Open borders + No Welfare State = healthy & desirable.
Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
1940s?
That's the era of the greatest fiscal stimulus in the history of Earth -- World War II. If the 1940s were evidence of anything, it's Keynesian Economics.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
Perhaps poor communication, but I should clarify my remarks were about 1870 to early 1900s. I'd say the American West in the 1800s was pretty much close to it as possible, but the point being isn't that it is perfect, but it is better than all other alternatives. Libertarianism is not a utopian ideology, as much as you would like to strawman, unlike Communism / Socialism which is completely utopian. I mean, hell, the Socialist Man -- changing the nature of man. Good luck with that one.
In any event, by any measures a freer society is a more prosperous society, with less violence and more cooperation. I know Socialists always like to avoid and completely dismiss the violence that is the State, but it is not avoidable. The tax man cometh and taketh and if ye shall dissent ye shall either get lead or thrown in a cage. Lovely.
Free market doesn't assume anything, and as for monopolies they cannot exist in the absence of the State or a similar institution because the definition of a monopoly prohibits it as such. Read up on the etymology and use of the word. It has described a Government writ of immunity and privilege since its inception and it wasn't until the last Century that it has been bastardized beyond any utility.
The reason why the market is the most efficient (and hardly anyone argues this point) is because it most reflects reality, as in the actual price of goods, services, and labor. It reflects supply and demands and best accomodates the wants of the masses. The State on the contrary serves as always a privileged Elite and its attendant vestiges. It distorts prices through subsidies, price / wage / rent controls, and other interventions into the economy. This is why depressions and recessions occur and last so long as prices can never reflect reality and the allocation of resources are distorted causing massive unemployment and waste.
Never mind the fact that running to an Institution which killed over 200 million in the 20th Century alone is pretty fucking retarded to begin with.
You have absolutely no evidence that free markets are efficient in the real world. The efficiency of free markets is simply an article of faith.
The efficiency of free markets is based on purely theoretical deductions which assumes, amongst other things, that there's no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. I'm not arguing semantics and definitions. I'm arguing about the conditions that are necessary for a free market to be efficient.
Since these assumptions do not hold in reality, the efficiency of free markets does not hold. As a result, real free markets, i.e. unregulated markets, are subject to frequent market failures, so that government policies are needed to correct for these failures.
In fact, a perfect example of this is in the 1870s, the era which you cited, before the Federal Reserve, whereby simply a rumor could cause a bank run, i.e. the collapse of a bank. Moreover, this was the reason the Fed was created:
No evidence? How about you just compare say...North Korea to...the US? That isn't to say the US has a desirable economic system or even a market one, but it is to say that it is freer than NK, or if you want a better comparison...say, Hong Kong compared to Sweden.
If the theory was wrong then freer countries would be poorer than less free. You would see the USSR, NK, Khmer Rouge, and other historically oppressive State-ran societies with a higher standard of living. I thin that's pretty much self-explanatory, not to mention you can observe the price mechanism in an environment free of most regulation and intervention (say circa 1880 United States) compared to today. You can't even imagine today gasoline falling from 4$ to 25 cents a gallon, can you, but that was a regular occurence in nearly all industries in the late 1800s. Hell, you should be congratulating John Rockefeller for saving the whales.
As far as banking you couldn't be more wrong either theoretically or historically.
To take a second with US banks in the 1800s...all the runs and failures were a result of the banning of branch banking a wholly State originated problem. If you look at Canada who had no such banning, and who had a pretty much fully free-banking system (local banks issued their own notes, no regulation, etc.), they had ZERO failures in the entirity of the 19th Century. Once again, proves that the State impedes stability, progress, and prosperity.
As for the video, next you'll get me the CEO of Chysler and Obama telling me the efficacy of the Volt. Who needs independent car reviewers.
This is about whether society can in force law and order without government. It's got nothing to do with the topic.
It it says:
3) Private protection agencies will soon discover that "warfare" is a costly way of resolving disputes and lower-cost methods of settlement (arbitration, courts, etc.) will result
However, this does not mean that there were no disputes that would cause one to doubt the efficacy of such arrangements. Two examples of civil disorder are often mentioned in Western history and they must be dealt with. The first is the very bitter feud between the Regulators and the Modera- tors in the Republic of Texas in the 1840b.63 What started as a disagreement between two individuals in Shelby County escalated until it involved a significant number of people in a large area of east Texas. In 1839 a loosely organized hand, later to be known as the Moderators, was issuing bogus land papers, stealing horses, murdering, and generally breaking the "law" of Shelby County, Texas. To counter this lawlessness a vigilance committee was formed under the name of Regulators. Unfortunately, "bad elements soon infiltrated the Regulators, and their excesses in crime later rivaled those of the Moderators. The situation evolved into a complexity of personal and family feuds, and complete anarchy existed until 1844."M One citizen de- scribed the situation in a letter to a friend: Civil war, with all its horror, has been raging in this community. The citizens of the county are about equally divided into two parties, the Regulators and Moderators. It is no uncommon sight to see brothers opposed to each other. Every man's interest in this county is seriously affected.6J During the period eighteen men were murdered and many more wounded. Only when President Sam Houston called out the militia in 1844 &id the feuding stop. Thus, for whatever reasons, in this case it appears that depen- dence upon non-governmental forms of organization was not successful.
No evidence? How about you just compare say...North Korea to...the US? That isn't to say the US has a desirable economic system or even a market one, but it is to say that it is freer than NK, or if you want a better comparison...say, Hong Kong compared to Sweden.
Retarded. No one ever told you about the apple and banana thing? Or ceteris paribus?
On April 24 2012 05:15 kwizach wrote: [quote] Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
1940s?
That's the era of the greatest fiscal stimulus in the history of Earth -- World War II. If the 1940s were evidence of anything, it's Keynesian Economics.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
Perhaps poor communication, but I should clarify my remarks were about 1870 to early 1900s. I'd say the American West in the 1800s was pretty much close to it as possible, but the point being isn't that it is perfect, but it is better than all other alternatives. Libertarianism is not a utopian ideology, as much as you would like to strawman, unlike Communism / Socialism which is completely utopian. I mean, hell, the Socialist Man -- changing the nature of man. Good luck with that one.
In any event, by any measures a freer society is a more prosperous society, with less violence and more cooperation. I know Socialists always like to avoid and completely dismiss the violence that is the State, but it is not avoidable. The tax man cometh and taketh and if ye shall dissent ye shall either get lead or thrown in a cage. Lovely.
Free market doesn't assume anything, and as for monopolies they cannot exist in the absence of the State or a similar institution because the definition of a monopoly prohibits it as such. Read up on the etymology and use of the word. It has described a Government writ of immunity and privilege since its inception and it wasn't until the last Century that it has been bastardized beyond any utility.
The reason why the market is the most efficient (and hardly anyone argues this point) is because it most reflects reality, as in the actual price of goods, services, and labor. It reflects supply and demands and best accomodates the wants of the masses. The State on the contrary serves as always a privileged Elite and its attendant vestiges. It distorts prices through subsidies, price / wage / rent controls, and other interventions into the economy. This is why depressions and recessions occur and last so long as prices can never reflect reality and the allocation of resources are distorted causing massive unemployment and waste.
Never mind the fact that running to an Institution which killed over 200 million in the 20th Century alone is pretty fucking retarded to begin with.
You have absolutely no evidence that free markets are efficient in the real world. The efficiency of free markets is simply an article of faith.
The efficiency of free markets is based on purely theoretical deductions which assumes, amongst other things, that there's no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. I'm not arguing semantics and definitions. I'm arguing about the conditions that are necessary for a free market to be efficient.
Since these assumptions do not hold in reality, the efficiency of free markets does not hold. As a result, real free markets, i.e. unregulated markets, are subject to frequent market failures, so that government policies are needed to correct for these failures.
In fact, a perfect example of this is in the 1870s, the era which you cited, before the Federal Reserve, whereby simply a rumor could cause a bank run, i.e. the collapse of a bank. Moreover, this was the reason the Fed was created:
No evidence? How about you just compare say...North Korea to...the US? That isn't to say the US has a desirable economic system or even a market one, but it is to say that it is freer than NK, or if you want a better comparison...say, Hong Kong compared to Sweden.
If the theory was wrong then freer countries would be poorer than less free. You would see the USSR, NK, Khmer Rouge, and other historically oppressive State-ran societies with a higher standard of living. I thin that's pretty much self-explanatory, not to mention you can observe the price mechanism in an environment free of most regulation and intervention (say circa 1880 United States) compared to today. You can't even imagine today gasoline falling from 4$ to 25 cents a gallon, can you, but that was a regular occurence in nearly all industries in the late 1800s.
As far as banking you couldn't be more wrong either theoretically or historically.
To take a second with US banks in the 1800s...all the runs and failures were a result of the banning of branch banking a wholly State originated problem. If you look at Canada who had no such banning, and who had a pretty much fully free-banking system (local banks issued their own notes, no regulation, etc.), they had ZERO failures in the entirity of the 19th Century. Once again, proves that the State impedes stability, progress, and prosperity.
As for the video, next you'll get me the CEO of Chysler and Obama telling me the efficacy of the Volt. Who needs independent car reviewers.
The evidence says income inequality leads to worse societies (TED video in previous post), not that completely free markets are the most prosperous.
Market should be free to the extent that regulation is needed to prevent market failures, such as those that can be caused by moral hazard, adverse selection, banks gambling with derivatives, too big to fail, copyright infringement, wealth concentration etc. The examples you cited, are countries with governments and government regulations and this stops some of the market failures associated with a completely free market.
You're argument on bank runs is completely irrelevant because even a rumor that is completely false is enough to start a bank run. So what matters is not what started those bank runs, but what can and have started bank runs, and what would happen in these cases had their not been a central bank.
A bank run can occur even when started by a false story. Even depositors who know the story is false will have an incentive to withdraw, if they suspect other depositors will believe the story. The story becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.[1] Indeed, Robert K. Merton, who coined the term self-fulfilling prophecy, mentioned bank runs as a prime example of the concept in his book Social Theory and Social Structure.[9]
In fact, there was recently a bank run was started by a rumor:
On 11 December 2011, a rumor was spread via Twitter that the Swedish banks Swedbank and SEB was having "problems" and there was a lesser hysteria in Latvia. People emptied their accounts, and according to local media there were long lines of people at the cash machines. [26] On December 12 the authorities started an investigation to locate the cause of the rumors, and the spokesman for Swedbank said that the situation seemed to be calming down. [27]
Another example of a false rumor starting a bank run, is the Magnet Savings Bank in 1986.
Central banks prevent bank runs.
And having now read the article, it says nothing about bank runs, and indeed none of the features it listed as being inherent in free banking is sufficient to prevent a bank run. Moreover, the clearinghouse it mentions is a de facto central bank.
How are any of these posts related to the french election ?
We are not discussing the socialist party theories, nor are we discussing the advantage of the US system of the french system. Take your crap out of this thread.
I guess Sarkozy would again be a clear favorite in 2017 if Hollande's mandate is a disaster. If not him, there are a few right wing potential candidates that he has managed to shut down this time around.
He clearly said if he lose this one, he will retire from politic life. A lot can happen in 5 years but the most logical successors are Alain Jupé or Jean-François Copé. And both are not really loved by people.
I guess Sarkozy would again be a clear favorite in 2017 if Hollande's mandate is a disaster. If not him, there are a few right wing potential candidates that he has managed to shut down this time around.
He clearly said if he lose this one, he will retire from politic life. A lot can happen in 5 years but the most logical successors are Alain Jupé or Jean-François Copé. And both are not really loved by people.
Although Juppé is arguably the smartest one in his party, he will never be a viable candidate as nobody likes him... Bertrand or Chatel are more likely to be the 2017 generation or maybe NKM but not Sarkozy, for sure
On April 24 2012 22:34 Otolia wrote: How are any of these posts related to the french election ?
We are not discussing the socialist party theories, nor are we discussing the advantage of the US system of the french system. Take your crap out of this thread.
Dunno, I didn't start it, but I'm happy to stop, since I've pretty much said what I want to.
On topic, a vote for Sarkozy is a vote for Merkel's disastrous austerity-mad economic policy that is destroying the Eurozone economy, causing mass unemployment, no growth, and general misery.
On April 24 2012 02:56 Kukaracha wrote: You didn't understand what I said. I said that to stop immigration, and in particular illegal immigration, there is no other short term solution than violence. This is why people in Calas, or if you want to be picky about it, Saint-Denis, have a hard life, because it's the people's barrier to foreigners. To decrease drastically illegal immigration, you need to drastically raise violence.
This is NOT what I want, but this is how it works. If you refuse citizenship to people who were born in this country, then they become sub-citizens. It's a form of violence. It's all done to discourage migrations towards our territory. And foreigners can only legally stay in France for a short period of time unless they obtain a visa. What happens when it expires? They have to be physically expelled from the country. Reducing the number of people allowed to become French would require to send back "home" thousands and thousands of people.
So, yes, any of those problems quoted above end up with violence, because violence is the easiest way to force or prevent migrations.
And yes, it's important in Le Pen's campaign, where you often hear the phrase "la France aux français", which translates to "France belongs to the French", implying that the country belongs to white people who have lived here for an arbitrary amount of generations. They are close to the Vlaams Belang too. I don't see how you can deny that.
Ye sure, violence is at the origins of each country on the planet. It's through violence that France unified itself, and defended its borders and sovereignty through history.
Borders are actually what define countries, and once people stop fighting for their owns, they get crossed, and the natives get either annihilated, conquered or colonized.
Nothing wrong with immigration, the problem is the Welfare State which subdizies and encourages the poor of the world rushing into the country, which results in a heavy drain of the countries prosperity and wealth. So, then, what's the answer? Get rid of the Welfare System. The last thing you want is a Welfare State and a Police State. As long as that incentive is there to come into your country no matter what (surely better to be in a French prison with food and shelter than languishing in a third world hell hole or more than likely on the dole without need of work and toil), then if you want to stop the flood of people it requires massive violence and Police State. Not desirable. Immigration in sustainable numbers (e.g. without a Welfare State) is highly desirable and wanted.
Open borders + Welfare State = a disaster. Welfare State + Police State = disaster. Open borders + No Welfare State = healthy & desirable.
Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
Oh, okay, sorry. I forgot about the middle-class who had the best rats in the trenches and during the bombing of Dresde. Damn, that middle class is pretty, tough, blossoming amidst chaos and destruction with a ravaged industry! If the agrarian era was hell, then how come the 19th century was so nostalgic of it? How come we had works like L'Assomoir or Les Misérables? With the industrial era came a new form of poverty and misery.
I love arguing historic points with econ students
And, yes Boblion, sorry for name-dropping Zola and Hugo after quoting a CNRS member, all of those pseudo-thinkers don't belong in a serious debate, amrite?
Ps : Gotta love the reference to 19th century USA, mostly agrarian, underdevelopped, the scenery of the Indian genocide, as a good example. I haven't seen many other states get the possibility to give up free acres of land, by the way.
On April 24 2012 19:25 Boblion wrote: It is hilarious how everyone is demonizing the FN when they are one of the few parties talking about nation, values, poor working people and with a reasonable foreign policy for a mid-power (i.e: isolationism). Boo hoo racists !
As always, there is little to no substance in your posts.
"Le vote front national est un vote de classes populaires. Dans les beaux quartiers, on ne se reconnaît pas dans l’idéologie du FN. D’abord parce que le discours du Front national est politiquement trop primaire pour correspondre aux classes moyennes et supérieures diplômées, qui contrairement aux gens du peuple, ont la possibilité de mener une analyse de fond, de mobiliser des références culturelles, de mettre en perspective historique. Pour les habitants des beaux quartiers, c’est un vote inélégant, brutal, xénophobe."
"The FN vote is the vote of the lower classes. In the fashionable areas, people don't recognize themselves in the FN's ideology. First because the line of the National Front (FN) is poilitically too simplistic to correspond to the acedmically educated middle and higher classes, who, to the contrary of the common people, have the possibility to analyze throughly, to mobilize cultural references, to put things in a historical perspective; For those who live in the wealthy neighbourhoods, it's an inelegant, brutal, xenophobic vote."
- Monique Pinçon-Charlot, sociologist, retired director of research in the CNRS
Find it really contemptuous, "gens du peuple" means nothing.
"who, to the contrary of the common people, have the possibility to analyze throughly, to mobilize cultural references, to put things in a historical perspective", TL:DR poor people are ignorant bastards, they can't analyze shit. Poor people are just the more scared, and they have less to lose with a political earthquake (like getting out of the eurozone). That's why they vote tend to go to extremes. Not because they are dumb, they are on average obviously less educated. But you have some "educated" people dumb as shit (paying for a diploma in a random business school).
Of course poor people are ignorant, not only because they can't affort education, but also because of their habits. You can argue about all day with me, but I come from a very poor backround and I can't find anyone from the poorest branches of my family that has a single clue of what's going on.
It's true that it's also a sign of despair, but they have to be fools or on the verge of depression to believe it will solve their problems.
Question: Why does Francois Hollande refuses the 3 debates Sarkozy proposed?
It is pretty obvious him arguing that the tradition is of having one debate is only a way for him not to justify his real reasons. I'm not blaming him here, just reading the "obvious" between the lines (if this makes any sense ^^)
Now the real reasons:
- Could it be a fear of debates that would be heavily biased in favour of Sarkozy since he's been known for having very good relations with many head executives of most French medias? - Is it as some media say it in France, because he's just a pussy and fears not being capable to compete with Sarkozy during several public debates? - Is it that he just doesn't have enough to say to hold 3 interesting debates? - Is it a way to affirm is strength among is own supporters by heavily rejecting a proposal from Sarkozy?
These are a few reasons I've been thinking of but of course it could be anything else.
Nevertheless I'm a bit surprised, considering he is a candidate a third of the country doubts to have any political capability (yes this third are FN or Sarkozy supporters but still he might be their president someday so proving them wrong now could be ... smart), I would have expected him to try his best to prove he is not only the candidate of the socialist part but he is also the candidate his country needs.
On April 25 2012 01:26 Emix_Squall wrote: Question: Why does Francois Hollande refuses the 3 debates Sarkozy proposed?
It is pretty obvious him arguing that the tradition is of having one debate is only a way for him not to justify his real reasons. I'm not blaming him here, just reading the "obvious" between the lines (if this makes any sense ^^)
Now the real reasons:
- Could it be a fear of debates that would be heavily biased in favour of Sarkozy since he's been known for having very good relations with many head executives of most French medias? - Is it as some media say it in France, because he's just a pussy and fears not being capable to compete with Sarkozy during several public debates? - Is it that he just doesn't have enough to say to hold 3 interesting debates? - Is it a way to affirm is strength among is own supporters by heavily rejecting a proposal from Sarkozy?
These are a few reasons I've been thinking of but of course it could be anything else.
Nevertheless I'm a bit surprised, considering he is a candidate a third of the country doubts to have any political capability (yes this third are FN or Sarkozy supporters but still he might be their president someday so proving them wrong now could be ... smart), I would have expected him to try his best to prove he is not only the candidate of the socialist part but he is also the candidate his country needs.
I think its a strategical decision. Sarkozy is seen as the underdog, the challenger with this move (and in the whole election also). Hollande has the "presidential" attitude. Its almost like Hollande was president for the past 5 years with this move. Also Hollande is always talking about him as "candidat-sortant" instead of "président-sortant". ("outgoing candidate" / "outgoing president")
Its all part of his strategy and has nothing to do with debates themselves. He just wants to ignore him and dictate his own path / tempo.
Wich is very funny when you know Sarkozy who's a bit capricious and easily frustrated. He's probably steaming of rage atm because he has to face a "wall".
On April 24 2012 05:15 kwizach wrote: [quote] Brilliant line of reasoning: let's worsen the living conditions (at least for the poor) in our country so that immigrants won't want to come anymore. Genius.
The Welfare State decreases societies progress and prosperity. Poor is relative. There will always be poor folks. The poor in the USSR were the saps unlucky to be born outside of the Party and its apparitchiks, and those not attached to the State (e.g. pretty much 90% of the country). They had much worse lives than the poor in the US, and other relatively more free societies. I'd much rather be a poor man in wealthy country than a poor man in a poor country. You may think you are doing the poor a service, but you aren't. You are making their standard of living much worse especially so by advocating for Open Borders and a Welfare State, and it is as worse if the advocates are for closed borders / immigration + Police State to enforce it. The humane and beneficial position for the poor is Open Borders + No Welfare State.
Another one of those people who can't see further than the nose on their face. Do you ever think through your position further than a cursory glance? See what the consequences are down the line? To society as a whole?
David B. Grusky shares an insight generally ignored by the center-left: The real problem of inequality is not inequality of after-tax income resulting from an inequitable tax system, but the inequality of pre-tax income generated by the economic system itself (“What to Do About Inequality?” Boston Review, March-April 2012).
Income inequality results, not — as in the standard liberal narrative — from a highly competitive market, but from “lack of market competition.” “The core idea is that powerful players have built self-serving and inequality-generating institutions that are often codified in law and come to be represented — through an ingenious sleight of hand — as laissez-faire capitalism.” There would be less income inequality, Grusky writes, if the economy were more competitive.
The State through the environment it has codified (either a Corporatist or Socialist) creates the massive income inequalities we see around us today. It is precisely the lack of a laissez-faire economic environment that is the cause. The enormous barriers to entry in nearly every Industry thanks to the State inculcates the Corporate giants from most competition. Take for example, the early 20th compared to the 21st. There has never been a time of more competition and relative openness than the late 19th and early 20th (prior Fed and Sherman / Clayton), and precisely this period we saw the origins of the middle class as wages increased by over 50% and productivity soared, as well as the purchasing power of the monetary unit (Gold/Silver), as you cannot inflate/print it.
Contra everything you've been taught at State-schools, a hard currency is the peoples money. It cannot be counterfeited, trifled with, defrauded on mass scale by a Politburo serving its customers (The Corporatist rich) who feast off the taxpayer. Similarly, the market, not the State is the peoples opportunity to a more prosperous, free, and less violent society. It is the voluntary associations that make society, not the violent coercive State. The Welfare State far from opportunity, creates dependance, lethargy, and envy amongst each other, pitting us in conflict while we become looted by those who actual control the Government and always have -- the parasitical Corporate-Complex, whether it be folks like Northropp, GE, or Chrysler.
Ah, those who believe in the invisible hand. Don't do anything, things will fix themselves. People who a have a clue call this the 'just-world fallacy" - too much Disney, not enough Zola.
A simple remark : the late 19th century was also the hell of the working classes, the time of a rampant "epidemy" of alcoholism. Not only that, but the middle-class appeared post-WW2, the biggest factor being... the end of the war - reconstruction, transfer of technology, industrial growth. How can you even speak of competitivity as the most important point of them all?
You live in a world of fantasy.
Are you serious? I have no time to bother to debate with someone who believes the middle classes didn't develop until the late 1940s. So bad for the working classes seeing their wages almost double, as well as the purchasing power of their monetary unit, as well as productivity and opportunity (aka fluidity between income brackets -- either up or down). People saw the greatest rise in the standard of living of any age since or before. Imagine that accounting for inflation the average wage from 1970 to now would be nearly 72,000 as opposed to the 41,000 it is now. How bad, that's not even accounting for the increase in purchasing power of the monetary unit as opposed to a flat 0% assumption.
You want to know what hell is? Try living in the agrarian eras. Working and toiling from dusk til dawn - the entire family, just to feed yourselves and maybe have some extra left over to sell in the local commons. That's hell. The Industrial Revolution which was enabled by a much more freer environment than we have today (aka pre-Corporation / Welfare / Regulatory environment / Pre-Fed / Pre-Income - Domestic Taxation / etc.). Taxation was less than 1% of GDP (this includes local, state, and federal). The lot of the masses is raised out of poverty and hell by a laissez-faire environment. It creates an environment that produces a more equal society both economically and civically (liberty).
You can't say handing someone a fish is providing opportunity. Teaching someone how to fish is an opportunity. The Welfare State and its antecedent growth of the State is the former and the Market society is the latter.
PS: I don't even like Adam Smith. He was a Statist. He didn't even bring anything original to Economics, except to make the Profession worse off. I much prefer Turgot and Cantillon and the Scholastics who originated Economics, and a lot of the knowledge we have today.
1940s?
That's the era of the greatest fiscal stimulus in the history of Earth -- World War II. If the 1940s were evidence of anything, it's Keynesian Economics.
Your laissez-faire economics is a complete fantasy divorced from reality. And a true laissez-faire market has never existed. You advocate a policy for something that doesn't and cannot exist, meaning your efforts are wasted. They are completely useless in telling us anything about the real world we live in, as opposed to the free market fantasy you wished you lived in.
Given that an actual laissez-faire market has never existed, how do you know that any of the dogma that you homilize, as if you were an Austrian priest, is actually true? It's completely faith-based, as the above poster pointed out.
Additionally, the efficiency of free markets assumes certain facts about the world that is not true, and cannot possibly be true, not even in the most creatively imagined utopian parallel universe that is free from the tyranny of government. It assumes no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. In no conceivable world that is occupied by human beings is it possible for any of these assumptions to be true.
In a truly free market, you'll have hundreds of telephone lines running down the streets, each constructed by a different company and hundreds of water pipes haphazardly cramped underneath it, with no central planning, each also operated by a different company.
Perhaps poor communication, but I should clarify my remarks were about 1870 to early 1900s. I'd say the American West in the 1800s was pretty much close to it as possible, but the point being isn't that it is perfect, but it is better than all other alternatives. Libertarianism is not a utopian ideology, as much as you would like to strawman, unlike Communism / Socialism which is completely utopian. I mean, hell, the Socialist Man -- changing the nature of man. Good luck with that one.
In any event, by any measures a freer society is a more prosperous society, with less violence and more cooperation. I know Socialists always like to avoid and completely dismiss the violence that is the State, but it is not avoidable. The tax man cometh and taketh and if ye shall dissent ye shall either get lead or thrown in a cage. Lovely.
Free market doesn't assume anything, and as for monopolies they cannot exist in the absence of the State or a similar institution because the definition of a monopoly prohibits it as such. Read up on the etymology and use of the word. It has described a Government writ of immunity and privilege since its inception and it wasn't until the last Century that it has been bastardized beyond any utility.
The reason why the market is the most efficient (and hardly anyone argues this point) is because it most reflects reality, as in the actual price of goods, services, and labor. It reflects supply and demands and best accomodates the wants of the masses. The State on the contrary serves as always a privileged Elite and its attendant vestiges. It distorts prices through subsidies, price / wage / rent controls, and other interventions into the economy. This is why depressions and recessions occur and last so long as prices can never reflect reality and the allocation of resources are distorted causing massive unemployment and waste.
Never mind the fact that running to an Institution which killed over 200 million in the 20th Century alone is pretty fucking retarded to begin with.
You have absolutely no evidence that free markets are efficient in the real world. The efficiency of free markets is simply an article of faith.
The efficiency of free markets is based on purely theoretical deductions which assumes, amongst other things, that there's no information asymmetry, rational expectations, perfect mobility, no monopolies, etc. I'm not arguing semantics and definitions. I'm arguing about the conditions that are necessary for a free market to be efficient.
Since these assumptions do not hold in reality, the efficiency of free markets does not hold. As a result, real free markets, i.e. unregulated markets, are subject to frequent market failures, so that government policies are needed to correct for these failures.
In fact, a perfect example of this is in the 1870s, the era which you cited, before the Federal Reserve, whereby simply a rumor could cause a bank run, i.e. the collapse of a bank. Moreover, this was the reason the Fed was created:
No evidence? How about you just compare say...North Korea to...the US? That isn't to say the US has a desirable economic system or even a market one, but it is to say that it is freer than NK, or if you want a better comparison...say, Hong Kong compared to Sweden.
If the theory was wrong then freer countries would be poorer than less free. You would see the USSR, NK, Khmer Rouge, and other historically oppressive State-ran societies with a higher standard of living. I thin that's pretty much self-explanatory, not to mention you can observe the price mechanism in an environment free of most regulation and intervention (say circa 1880 United States) compared to today. You can't even imagine today gasoline falling from 4$ to 25 cents a gallon, can you, but that was a regular occurence in nearly all industries in the late 1800s. Hell, you should be congratulating John Rockefeller for saving the whales.
As far as banking you couldn't be more wrong either theoretically or historically.
To take a second with US banks in the 1800s...all the runs and failures were a result of the banning of branch banking a wholly State originated problem. If you look at Canada who had no such banning, and who had a pretty much fully free-banking system (local banks issued their own notes, no regulation, etc.), they had ZERO failures in the entirity of the 19th Century. Once again, proves that the State impedes stability, progress, and prosperity.
As for the video, next you'll get me the CEO of Chysler and Obama telling me the efficacy of the Volt. Who needs independent car reviewers.
In my view Hong Kong is in no way preferable to Sweden so I have no idea what your point is. And your examples make absolutely no sense anyway as for them to support your argument we would have to assume the relation between "freedom" and prosperity is always monotone and somewhat proportional. There is nothing to support that assumption, everything we see supports that the relation is complex and as in many sociological issues seems to be actually a "hill" with a peak of prosperity somewhere between the two extremes and rather far from both extremes. Not even mentioning that there is nothing to suggest that the curve describing the relation is static in time.
On April 25 2012 01:26 Emix_Squall wrote: Question: Why does Francois Hollande refuses the 3 debates Sarkozy proposed?
It is pretty obvious him arguing that the tradition is of having one debate is only a way for him not to justify his real reasons. I'm not blaming him here, just reading the "obvious" between the lines (if this makes any sense ^^)
Now the real reasons:
- Could it be a fear of debates that would be heavily biased in favour of Sarkozy since he's been known for having very good relations with many head executives of most French medias? - Is it as some media say it in France, because he's just a pussy and fears not being capable to compete with Sarkozy during several public debates? - Is it that he just doesn't have enough to say to hold 3 interesting debates? - Is it a way to affirm is strength among is own supporters by heavily rejecting a proposal from Sarkozy?
These are a few reasons I've been thinking of but of course it could be anything else.
Nevertheless I'm a bit surprised, considering he is a candidate a third of the country doubts to have any political capability (yes this third are FN or Sarkozy supporters but still he might be their president someday so proving them wrong now could be ... smart), I would have expected him to try his best to prove he is not only the candidate of the socialist part but he is also the candidate his country needs.
Cause the election is won. The three debates are Sarkozy's only idea to change a 99% likely outcome, and it'd be pretty stupid to accept it. Right now Hollande just have to sit back, relax and profit instead of doing stupid debates in which he cannot gain anything.
EPT
i wonder if the french medias will speak about this.![[image loading]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/23/opinion/042312krugman1/042312krugman1-blog480.jpg)
