Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I don't think progressivism constitutes an ideology on par with the four I laid out. There is no history supporting that argument. I also strongly disagree with your opinionated conjecture that the policies I believe in require placing everyone in handcuffs and starving them as they are deprived of their civil liberties. It's not necessary to imprison everyone in order to provide the entire population with education and health care. There is history supporting that argument.

Of course you don't, that's because you're well meaning. That was my point earlier, and lines up with your point that hell is paved with good intentions.

No, that's not it at all. I don't think progressivism is an ideology on par with those others. I think it's a label that has been applied to a variety of ideologies through the last 100 years or so of American politics. Populists used it around the turn of the century. Communists and Socialists used it during the 1930's. Most recently, liberals have used it in order to escape ridicule in the mainstream media. In contrast, the other four ideologies apply to forms of government and economic organization that encompass a total vision of human society, one that countries have adopted and used for centuries in some cases. Those ideologies do not depend on an underlying foundational ideology in the way that progressivism does. Those ideologies provide their own foundation.

Progressivism is a truncation of Progressive Liberalism. The underlying ideology remains Liberalism, perhaps better phrased as American Exceptionalism, because progressivism is an American phenomenon. Where other countries have Labor parties or Socialist parties, we have a wing of the Democratic party that at the moment calls itself Progressive. Does any of this mean that Liberalism escapes the trap of good intentions? No, because that's a part of the human condition to which any ideology is susceptible. It seems to me that the trap of good intentions is triggered when adherents to an ideology lose sight of reality preferring instead to substitute what their ideology dictates is the case to what the actual case is. This was one of the fundamental flaws with the Bush administration, as expressed by critics of neo-conservativism who contrasted themselves as members of the "reality based community".

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I agree that it's silly to confer the right to murder to the "super citizen state" as you put it. That's why I used the word "imprison" in my remark. Meanwhile, who or what enforces the prohibition against infringing on another person's rights that you point to?

Who knows? I can guess and predict but my point is that there are alternatives to monopoly. It's a commonly known problem once you get to this point in the conversation that you're expected to have a slick and viable alternative to whatever you find ill-formed but that burden has nothing to do with the core argument.

Who knows? That's not much of an answer, especially when you accuse me of having a faith based view of politics. Come down from the clouds and offer a real answer to that question. If there are alternatives capable of resolving infringements on other people's rights, lay them out.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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It's not my faith, it's your flawed arguments.

Later in this thread you concede it is your faith but then equivocate that you still disagree with my Divine Right of Kings term.

Where exactly do you think I concede the point?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Absent the state, how would murderers and thieves be dealt with?

That's a great topic, one I think you'd appreciate as well because it gives you lots of room for mocking and eyebrow raising.

Law in Anarchy

Effective Anarachic Law

Anarchy and The Law

The first two links are short articles on the subject and the third is a decent treatment but a full book.

The subject has spawned hundreds of lengthy articles and books so I don't really want to abbreviate it and offer a poor explanation.

Fair enough. That's a fair bit of material to digest. The book looks good. $65. I read one or two of Spooner's essays in college. He has a fan club. "The Constitution of No Authority" is a classic of sorts. Return to 1870! [grin]

That first essay is a screed. It employs overly stringent categories to classes of something it terms "good law", then proceeds to argue that laws prohibiting racism "have effects curiously similar to" laws commanding racism. Then without further qualification, it jumps to other topics related to current affairs. "If a crime has a specific identifiable victim, who is the victim of a specific identifiable act, then that law is a private good, because each particular individual will have reason to enter into arrangements to ensure that such crimes are punished or avenged when committed against himself." -- "I will be willing to do what is necessary to obtain a defense contract that says that if I am robbed or murdered, I will be avenged." Hell Girl!

That leaves David Friedman. "There are three ways in which such conflicts might be dealt with. The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest. A somewhat more plausible scenario is negotiation. Since warfare is expensive, agencies might include in the contracts they offer their customers a provision under which they are not obliged to defend customers against legitimate punishment for their actual crimes. When a conflict occured, it would then be up to the two agencies to determine whether the accused customer of one would or would not be deemed guilty and turned over to the other." Sounds like a gangster movie. "A still more attractive and more likely solution is advance contracting between the agencies. Under this scenario, any two agencies that faced a significant probability of such clashes would agree on an arbitration agency to settle them-a private court. Implicit or explicit in their agreement would be the legal rules under which such disputes were to be settled." Sounds like the Godfather. "The resulting legal system might contain many different law codes. The rules governing a particular conflict will depend on the arbitration agency that the enforcement agencies employed by the parties to the conflict have agreed on. While there will be some market pressure for uniformity, it is logically possible for every pair of enforcement agencies to agree on a different arbitration agency with a different set of legal rules.[5]" Sounds like a Yakuza or a Samurai movie.

Fabulistic Fabulism!

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I don't claim that the state is benevolent. I think it's a necessary evil (If men were angels, no government would be necessary.). What you consider a conflation of legality and morality might well be at work, but it's misleading to call that The Divine Right of Kings. It seems to me that calling it that constitutes a feeble attempt at sounding erudite. It's an abuse of history for political purposes, an attempt at making those whom you disagree with appear stuck in the distant past. It seems to me that if there is a shared premise to the concepts you dislike, it would make more sense to isolate that premise and go after it directly, rather than getting lost in an effort to spin and distort history.

I don't think you dislike my term because it is unwieldy, I think you dislike it because it points out an illogical compromise you are required to make mentally in order to hold the positions that you hold. It's not an abuse of history, rather it is a nod to history and how it repeats itself. It doesn't "make you appear stuck in the distant past", it points out that you are stuck in the distant past.

Illogical compromise? It's nothing of the sort. You're misappropriating and abusing history in order to level an attack on an ideological opponent. History doesn't repeat itself. We repeat it in our stories. For example, the notion that god confers legitimacy on a king and that violating the rules set by the king is akin to violating the rules set by god. I think that is a fiction. A relic of the past. I do not think it still applies. Maybe other people do. This story is similar to but not the same as the conflation of legality with morality. That is a different story with different features.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Yes, that line refers to Natural Rights, but I didn't ask about them. Is it fair to assume that you disagree with Jefferson's assertion that it is a self-evident truth that governments are instituted among human beings to secure their natural rights?

I don't disagree with Jefferson on this issue. It would be awesome if we had a government that drew its powers from the consent of the governed and it's end was to secure our natural rights.

You agree that governments are instituted to secure natural rights? That contradicts your previous statements regarding the irreconcilable conflict between the individual and the state.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
That's obviously not what we have, nor may it be possible to achieve that lofty goal. Sociology and Economics were baby sciences when Jefferson penned that, and as progressive are so want to point out, Jefferson may choose to phrase much or all of the constituion differently were he alive today.

A lofty goal indeed, "in order to form a more perfect union"...

As for your conjecture about progressive Jefferson fan subs, you got me there. I really don't think they exist, but maybe they do.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That leaves David Friedman. "There are three ways in which such conflicts might be dealt with. The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest...

Just to point out in general, a conversation like this was in thread Could the state of Wyoming function without a police force? already. I think personal freedom and suchlike is a noble idea. On the whole, there are problems. As state here in the last few posts.

Setting aside the concept of forming a state or a community in the first place...

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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That's technically incorrect. It's ideologically correct, according to your ideology, but it's technically incorrect. graft -noun: the acquisition of money, gain, or advantage by dishonest, unfair, or illegal means, esp. through the abuse of one's position or influence in politics, business, etc. If that's not sufficiently technical, consult U.S. Code : TITLE 18. CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CHAPTER 11 - BRIBERY, GRAFT, AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.

Its obvious you didnt understand my point....again. It is, per your definition...graft. It is a monetary gain and advantage by unfair and dishonest means. That is is legal because the government is involved in the graft doesn't invalidate the term.

I understood your point. I disagree with your premise, again. It isn't necessarily unfair or dishonest. It's graft when it is, when it's not, it's not graft.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Given the wide variety of mathematical formulas employed by economists, if economics is not a quantitative science, then it sure wants to be one. It seems to me that if economists count things as part of their method, then economics is a quantitative science. Whether or not they are able to accurately predict the future does not change that, nor does it make economics a qualitative science.

There are people that argue your case, but they're as wrong as you are. No one can predict the DOW in 3 years but given a set of input one can generally predict the trend. Efforts to read the tea leaves are, and should remain resigned to withcraft.

Do economists count and measure what has already happened in the economy? Yes. Therefore, economics is quantitative, by at least half. Do they extrapolate from there? Yes, with qualifiers to hedge their predictions. That their predictions fail does not negate the fact that they count and measure what has already happened in the economy.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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McCain, like most Republicans, is a military Keynesian, not a Keynesian. Nouriel Roubini and others predicted the current turmoil too. I'm sure I could dig around a bit and find articles written by Marxists from two or three years ago also warning about the impending collapse of the housing market. As for finding analysis from him relevant to my assessment, that's work for you to do not me. Do tax cuts during a recession effect economic growth and if so how? What does Schiff say? Since you've brought him up, it's on you to do the homework.

He's a military Keynesian, which isn't a Keynesian, of course. It doesn't fit your argument so lets redefine reality. A soccer ball isn't a ball, it's a soccer ball.

I'm not redefining reality. A military Keynesian typically denies the Keynesian aspects of deficit spending for military purposes. The hypocrisy of that denial has been on display in the media these last few weeks as Republicans in Congress issue their complaints against the stimulus bill. Government spending on school construction is pork, government spending on military contractors is national security. The redefinition of reality occurs in the media, where the common approach used by both parties is portrayed as fundamentally different rather than fundamentally based on the same economic principles. Because of that, it's necessary to start there in order to expose the commonality. McCain and friends don't advertise their Keynesianism, they disguise it as being "strong on national defense".

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
Not that you can be swayed, because in the end summation we're not having a logical debate but rather logic versus faith, but here's a fun and short(10 minutes) video of Schiff versus the Keyensians.

">Video

It's just a montage of Keynesian after Keynesian recommending you buy stocks that are about to implode and laughing at Schiff while he accurately predicts the "qualitive" effect of the bubble.

YouTube has been crashing my browser lately, so I'm going to skip that. At any rate, the question posed was "Do tax cuts during a recession effect economic growth and if so how?" A clip of Schiff predicting stocks doesn't bear on that. It's just cheerleading! [grin]

And as for the logic versus faith angle that you keep playing up, that's your opinion, your faith, your ideology.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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So it only involves two people and one meeting? How is that a rate, much less an equilibrium?

That's what's known as the margin man. All markets take place at the margin. If you look at a stock price, that's the last transaction where the lowest seller and the highest bidder meet. There are a million other people on either side but the clearing rate of that stock was X.

Your explanations are filled with jargon and your explanations of that jargon are filled with more jargon. Clearing rate: "The equilibrium where the highest bidder for money and the lowest seller of money meet on terms." Did you leave out the word "point" as in "equilibrium point"? By "meet on terms" do you mean "agree to a price"? It seems so. At any rate, this definition of margin, doesn't appear to correspond with yours and the word "clearing" doesn't show up at all. Poking around it appears that your talking about market clearing, where the word "margin" doesn't show up at all. Granted, that source is far from the end all be all, but it does afford suitable language and references to related subjects, like the demise of Say's law during the Great Depression.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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What you explained cut people at or below subsistence out of the picture.

Right, because someone with exactly enough money to make it then gets more money yet still has exactly enough money to make it.

1+1 doesn't equal 1

People at or below subsistence are still cut out of the picture.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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By all means provide better information, just be clear with your analogies. If you're talking about the behavior of bankers, then talk about the motivations and activities of bankers. Earlier you said economics defied prediction, are you changing your tune?

Quantative prediciton. How did you ever get through college man? Even a liberal arts education requires 1301 and 1302 i think.

That's a fine thing to say for someone with spelling problems.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I don't think we've agreed that increasing disposable income creates jobs. Increasing disposable income increases demand which can lead to job creation but it can also lead to higher prices. Conversely, decreasing disposable income decreases demand, which can lead to job destruction but it can also lead to lower prices. I think the government is capable of creating more jobs than it destroys while still having a net positive effect, but I think there are limits to such arrangements that preclude everyone from working for the government.

In homage to the Laffer curve lets call this the Bread curve(Later to be known as the Bread line curve). So what percentage of the population should become government employees to best benefit society man? I agree that government employment is subject to diminishing returns, but the reason is because it is parasitic in nature, and at some tipping point the earners will fold under the parasitic pressure.

I know this will set you off, but so what. "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities." -- Abraham Lincoln. The percentage of the population that should become government employees, is whatever percentage is required to fulfill that object. This is not parasitism.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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It's not so much an invalidation as a modification limiting interchangeability between the two.

It seems like a pointless extension of no substance.

A tax hike that goes to pay for past spending, pays for the interest on the debt created by that spending. A tax hike that goes to pay for future spending, pays no interest since it creates no debt. A tax hike that goes to pay for no spending, pays nothing. Tax hikes are not one and the same as government spending. This is the flip side of "A tax cut is a tax cut regardless of whether or not government spending is cut."

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Is the problem with Keynes, or is it with politicians who are unable to tell their constituencies that taxes must be raised or spending cut back to pay back the deficit and that either way is going to hurt? Keynes wrote that his theory of "output as a whole ... is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state". He's not saying that his theory leads to the formation of a totalitarian state, but that a totalitarian state would have an easier time adopting it. Maybe that's because a dictator could raise taxes or cut back spending without regard to the hurt such actions would impose on the public.

yes, Keynes was pointing out that people will only tolerate so much theft before they made it more difficult than it was worth. By simple inference he was making it clear that as a country moved toward totalitarianism his policies would be easier to implement.

I think the "move" that you posit resides in your interpretation.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
Keep in mind, the timing of this statement for context. This is as he's pointing out Nazi Germany as the ideal to implement his policies and hailing them as the likely future. That's your man.

He was gay too, are you going to toss that out as a put down as well?

Here is the Preface to the German Edition. It's dated 1936, three years after the Nazis took power and began implementing their economic vision. You can find a few details here. The story of Hjalmar Schacht is interesting. The Nazis veered away from laissez-faire long before 1936. Keynes doesn't write in that preface that Nazi Germany is the ideal to implement his policies. He writes that he would be content to "contribute some stray morsels" to German economists developing their own theories for Germany.

Quote: Original post by Naurava kulkuri

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That leaves David Friedman. "There are three ways in which such conflicts might be dealt with. The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest...

Just to point out in general, a conversation like this was in thread Could the state of Wyoming function without a police force? already. I think personal freedom and suchlike is a noble idea. On the whole, there are problems. As state here in the last few posts.

Setting aside the concept of forming a state or a community in the first place...

Friedman's essay was far superior to the other essay that DM linked to. His conception of "agencies" marks him as a syndicalist, more specifically an anarcho-syndicalist, which is rather far to the left on the political spectrum and thus a somewhat surprising link for DM to drop.

My comments compared the various snippets from Friedman's essay to portrayals of criminal societies in film: gangsters, mafia, yakuza. That's not surprising given that those kinds of criminal enterprises operate beyond the reach of the state, which by definition constitutes anarchy. We know from the tragedy portrayed in those kinds of films, as well as from real life, those kinds of organizations are prone to violence and thus are inherently unstable. Moreover, we know that they operate parasitically, taking far more from the larger society than they give back. Furthermore, it's questionable whether those kinds of societies can serve as suitable replacements for the state. They appear to need the presence of the state, and the social stability a state provides, in order to function.

Absent the state, crime syndicates devolve into armed factions headed up by warlords, as we see in failed states like Somalia and Afghanistan and in failing states like Mexico. It seems to me that if left alone, that is, if other states don't intervene, then eventually a single warlord vanquishes his rivals to become the new state, even if only de facto. If no single warlord emerges victorious, each of the various warlords operates as head of the de facto state of their fiefdom. That does not sound like an arrangement conducive to promoting the liberty of the individual, securing natural rights and so forth.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I understood your point. I disagree with your premise, again. It isn't necessarily unfair or dishonest. It's graft when it is, when it's not, it's not graft.

My premise was that redistributing income from poor people to rich people was both unfair and dishonestly done. Now you disagree with my premise. Rather, you dont understand my premise so you default to disagreeing.

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Do economists count and measure what has already happened in the economy? Yes. Therefore, economics is quantitative, by at least half. Do they extrapolate from there? Yes, with qualifiers to hedge their predictions. That their predictions fail does not negate the fact that they count and measure what has already happened in the economy.

You wont understand this either based on your continuing failure to understand basic terms relevant to the domain we're discussing but whatever.

Link to qualitative method

There is no doubt that some economist seek to pretend that econ is a quantative science. I stated that several posts ago. If that's where this is heading we may as well drop it.

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I'm not redefining reality. A military Keynesian typically denies the Keynesian aspects of deficit spending for military purposes. The hypocrisy of that denial has been on display in the media these last few weeks as Republicans in Congress issue their complaints against the stimulus bill. Government spending on school construction is pork, government spending on military contractors is national security. The redefinition of reality occurs in the media, where the common approach used by both parties is portrayed as fundamentally different rather than fundamentally based on the same economic principles. Because of that, it's necessary to start there in order to expose the commonality. McCain and friends don't advertise their Keynesianism, they disguise it as being "strong on national defense".

It's not a ball, it's a soccer ball. blah blah blah.

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YouTube has been crashing my browser lately, so I'm going to skip that. At any rate, the question posed was "Do tax cuts during a recession effect economic growth and if so how?" A clip of Schiff predicting stocks doesn't bear on that. It's just cheerleading!

Oh well, it's pretty funny watching a Keynesian guy recommend a buy on Wachovia 12 months before it goes bankrupt.

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And as for the logic versus faith angle that you keep playing up, that's your opinion, your faith, your ideology.

Right. I'm the one that believes in the all benevolent and omnipotent super citizen that should tuck us all in to bed at night.

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Your explanations are filled with jargon and your explanations of that jargon are filled with more jargon. Clearing rate: "The equilibrium where the highest bidder for money and the lowest seller of money meet on terms." Did you leave out the word "point" as in "equilibrium point"? By "meet on terms" do you mean "agree to a price"? It seems so. At any rate, this definition of margin, doesn't appear to correspond with yours and the word "clearing" doesn't show up at all. Poking around it appears that your talking about market clearing, where the word "margin" doesn't show up at all. Granted, that source is far from the end all be all, but it does afford suitable language and references to related subjects, like the demise of Say's law during the Great Depression.

Ok, first, the link you provided corresponds exactly with mine. The term margin, and at the margin is ubiquitous in economics. In fact the above referrenced textbook in a 1300 series class will have it several times.

I'm done discussing basic terms you should already understand if you want to pretend to hold an educated opinion on the subject.

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People at or below subsistence are still cut out of the picture.

Right, because the 5th or 6th time you make an unsubstantiated claim it must be true. Even in the face of contrary reason.

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That's a fine thing to say for someone with spelling problems.

Which is a fine way of ignoring what should be obvious. You have little to no knowledge on the subject we're discussing.

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I know this will set you off, but so what. "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities." -- Abraham Lincoln. The percentage of the population that should become government employees, is whatever percentage is required to fulfill that object. This is not parasitism.

You'd be better of sticking to Jefferson. Lincoln made GW look like Einstein and Mother Theresa.

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A tax hike that goes to pay for past spending, pays for the interest on the debt created by that spending. A tax hike that goes to pay for future spending, pays no interest since it creates no debt. A tax hike that goes to pay for no spending, pays nothing. Tax hikes are not one and the same as government spending. This is the flip side of "A tax cut is a tax cut regardless of whether or not government spending is cut."

The government generates 0 revenue. Every dollar it takes in it spends, and then some. Thus taxes are equivalent to government spending. If the government was at a large surplus then perhaps your sidestepping would be worth looking at.

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I think the "move" that you posit resides in your interpretation.

I think the historical fact doesn't jive with your preconceptions.

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He was gay too, are you going to toss that out as a put down as well?

I don't know, why are you conflating homosexuality with Nazi sympathy?

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Here is the Preface to the German Edition. It's dated 1936, three years after the Nazis took power and began implementing their economic vision. You can find a few details here. The story of Hjalmar Schacht is interesting. The Nazis veered away from laissez-faire long before 1936. Keynes doesn't write in that preface that Nazi Germany is the ideal to implement his policies. He writes that he would be content to "contribute some stray morsels" to German economists developing their own theories for Germany.

Google harder.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That does not sound like an arrangement conducive to promoting the liberty of the individual, securing natural rights and so forth.

Indeed so.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I understood your point. I disagree with your premise, again. It isn't necessarily unfair or dishonest. It's graft when it is, when it's not, it's not graft.

My premise was that redistributing income from poor people to rich people was both unfair and dishonestly done. Now you disagree with my premise. Rather, you dont understand my premise so you default to disagreeing.

I find that statement of your premise less than honest. Here's your remark where you first brought up graft: "A tax cut, that is funded by printing money to cover the shortfall redistribution of income, from top to bottom. So for the purposes of stimulus it is less effective, being government graft it doesnt[sic] necessarily flow to productive venture." (link) Don't pretend that you care a wit about poor people, or that you were thinking about the injustice of redistributing money from poor people to rich people. You're simply exploiting poor people to make your true beliefs sound noble. The premise on which your accusation of graft rests is that the state is never legitimate and therefore any government spending constitutes graft. I disagree with that premise.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Do economists count and measure what has already happened in the economy? Yes. Therefore, economics is quantitative, by at least half. Do they extrapolate from there? Yes, with qualifiers to hedge their predictions. That their predictions fail does not negate the fact that they count and measure what has already happened in the economy.

You wont understand this either based on your continuing failure to understand basic terms relevant to the domain we're discussing but whatever.

Link to qualitative method

There is no doubt that some economist seek to pretend that econ is a quantative science. I stated that several posts ago. If that's where this is heading we may as well drop it.

So economists pay their underlings to count and measure and then speculate on the compiled data?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I'm not redefining reality. A military Keynesian typically denies the Keynesian aspects of deficit spending for military purposes. The hypocrisy of that denial has been on display in the media these last few weeks as Republicans in Congress issue their complaints against the stimulus bill. Government spending on school construction is pork, government spending on military contractors is national security. The redefinition of reality occurs in the media, where the common approach used by both parties is portrayed as fundamentally different rather than fundamentally based on the same economic principles. Because of that, it's necessary to start there in order to expose the commonality. McCain and friends don't advertise their Keynesianism, they disguise it as being "strong on national defense".

It's not a ball, it's a soccer ball. blah blah blah.

I think McCain et al. would deny they were either.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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YouTube has been crashing my browser lately, so I'm going to skip that. At any rate, the question posed was "Do tax cuts during a recession effect economic growth and if so how?" A clip of Schiff predicting stocks doesn't bear on that. It's just cheerleading!

Oh well, it's pretty funny watching a Keynesian guy recommend a buy on Wachovia 12 months before it goes bankrupt.

Be that as it may, it still leaves the question unanswered. "Do tax cuts during a recession effect economic growth and if so how?" What does Schiff say about that?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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And as for the logic versus faith angle that you keep playing up, that's your opinion, your faith, your ideology.

Right. I'm the one that believes in the all benevolent and omnipotent super citizen that should tuck us all in to bed at night.

No, you're the one who believes an invisible hand will tuck us all into bed at night. Game theory proves it!

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Your explanations are filled with jargon and your explanations of that jargon are filled with more jargon. Clearing rate: "The equilibrium where the highest bidder for money and the lowest seller of money meet on terms." Did you leave out the word "point" as in "equilibrium point"? By "meet on terms" do you mean "agree to a price"? It seems so. At any rate, this definition of margin, doesn't appear to correspond with yours and the word "clearing" doesn't show up at all. Poking around it appears that your talking about market clearing, where the word "margin" doesn't show up at all. Granted, that source is far from the end all be all, but it does afford suitable language and references to related subjects, like the demise of Say's law during the Great Depression.

Ok, first, the link you provided corresponds exactly with mine. The term margin, and at the margin is ubiquitous in economics. In fact the above referrenced textbook in a 1300 series class will have it several times.

I'm done discussing basic terms you should already understand if you want to pretend to hold an educated opinion on the subject.

I see. So you're the expert, but you're not able to explain your area of expertise without recourse to jargon and when pressed on that deficiency, you complain and accuse and threaten to take your ball and go home.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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People at or below subsistence are still cut out of the picture.

Right, because the 5th or 6th time you make an unsubstantiated claim it must be true. Even in the face of contrary reason.

It seems to me that if you were offering contrary reasons, you wouldn't delete them from the ongoing context of the exchange. "because someone with exactly enough money to make it then gets more money yet still has exactly enough money to make it." By this reasoning, someone making millions remains at subsistence. That's a convenient trick. It allows for disguising policies that benefit the wealthy as policies that benefit the poor and people actually below subsistence remain cut out of the picture.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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That's a fine thing to say for someone with spelling problems.

Which is a fine way of ignoring what should be obvious. You have little to no knowledge on the subject we're discussing.

So you say, but yet I'm still winning the argument...

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I know this will set you off, but so what. "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities." -- Abraham Lincoln. The percentage of the population that should become government employees, is whatever percentage is required to fulfill that object. This is not parasitism.

You'd be better of sticking to Jefferson. Lincoln made GW look like Einstein and Mother Theresa.

Yes, you don't like Lincoln, you don't like Roosevelt, you don't like Jefferson... you don't like America much do you?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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A tax hike that goes to pay for past spending, pays for the interest on the debt created by that spending. A tax hike that goes to pay for future spending, pays no interest since it creates no debt. A tax hike that goes to pay for no spending, pays nothing. Tax hikes are not one and the same as government spending. This is the flip side of "A tax cut is a tax cut regardless of whether or not government spending is cut."

The government generates 0 revenue. Every dollar it takes in it spends, and then some. Thus taxes are equivalent to government spending. If the government was at a large surplus then perhaps your sidestepping would be worth looking at.

You write as if every government that has ever existed was always in debt.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I think the "move" that you posit resides in your interpretation.

I think the historical fact doesn't jive with your preconceptions.

And I think your reading comprehension skills are seriously compromised. You're spinning one sentence from that preface to say that he advocated totalitarianism. You'll have to offer more than spin to make that assertion stick.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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He was gay too, are you going to toss that out as a put down as well?

I don't know, why are you conflating homosexuality with Nazi sympathy?

Why are you portraying him as a Nazi sympathizer? "It would be historically inaccurate to accuse Keynes of explicitly being either a Nazi sympathizer or an advocate of Soviet or fascist-type totalitarianism." -- Richard M. Ebeling, Keynesian Economics and the Hubris of the Social Engineer

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Here is the Preface to the German Edition. It's dated 1936, three years after the Nazis took power and began implementing their economic vision. You can find a few details here. The story of Hjalmar Schacht is interesting. The Nazis veered away from laissez-faire long before 1936. Keynes doesn't write in that preface that Nazi Germany is the ideal to implement his policies. He writes that he would be content to "contribute some stray morsels" to German economists developing their own theories for Germany.

Google harder.

I doubt it would make a difference to you.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I find that statement of your premise less than honest. Here's your remark where you first brought up graft: "A tax cut, that is funded by printing money to cover the shortfall redistribution of income, from top to bottom. So for the purposes of stimulus it is less effective, being government graft it doesnt[sic] necessarily flow to productive venture." (link) Don't pretend that you care a wit about poor people, or that you were thinking about the injustice of redistributing money from poor people to rich people. You're simply exploiting poor people to make your true beliefs sound noble. The premise on which your accusation of graft rests is that the state is never legitimate and therefore any government spending constitutes graft. I disagree with that premise.

Well, youre right in one thing, I mispoke. Printed money is introduced into the market in a way that takes from the bottom and gives to the top. The quoted line is pretty bad grammar, and I reversed the direction of wealth distribution. Of course rather than correct me, which you would no doubt do if you had any comfort level with the topic, you quote my statement further proving you're largely clueless of the domain.

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So economists pay their underlings to count and measure and then speculate on the compiled data?

No point wasting my time on this one. If your point is that some economists consider economics capable of quantative analysis then we have an accord. My point was that it is not a quantative science, and becomes withcraft once you start reading tea leaves.

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I think McCain et al. would deny they were either.

And GW was protecting you from the terrorists, and Obama's going to filibuster a vote on telecom immunity, and Clinton never had sexual relations with that woman...

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No, you're the one who believes an invisible hand will tuck us all into bed at night. Game theory proves it!

I don't believe in an invisible hand, I do believe in spontaneous order. So does any game theorist worth discussing, as well as a variety of other sciences.

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I see. So you're the expert, but you're not able to explain your area of expertise without recourse to jargon and when pressed on that deficiency, you complain and accuse and threaten to take your ball and go home.

I can't educate you on a subject you're forcefully ignorant of, no.

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It seems to me that if you were offering contrary reasons, you wouldn't delete them from the ongoing context of the exchange. "because someone with exactly enough money to make it then gets more money yet still has exactly enough money to make it." By this reasoning, someone making millions remains at subsistence. That's a convenient trick. It allows for disguising policies that benefit the wealthy as policies that benefit the poor and people actually below subsistence remain cut out of the picture.

It means nothing of the sort. It means if it takes X to survive and that person receives X + some additional amount, then they no longer have only X.

Jargon must be your code word for basic verbage used to describe a topic you're clueless on.

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So you say, but yet I'm still winning the argument...

This isn't an argument that is capable of being won. I'm in a poo throwing contest with a monkey at the zoo. It just took me a bit to figure it out.

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Yes, you don't like Lincoln, you don't like Roosevelt, you don't like Jefferson... you don't like America much do you?

I do like Jefferson, he's my favorite founder. I don't presume he'd witness what his creation has become today and not wish to extend or revise his initial work. For all your bluster you agree with me, whether you will admit it or not.

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You write as if every government that has ever existed was always in debt.

And you happily narrow or expand the scope of the argument until you have some minor ledge to cling to rather than just drop an issue you're clearly mistaken on rather than admit it. Par for the course. Can you give me a country that runs a systemic budget surplus over the course of enough years for it to be considered the prevailing system?

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And I think your reading comprehension skills are seriously compromised. You're spinning one sentence from that preface to say that he advocated totalitarianism. You'll have to offer more than spin to make that assertion stick.

Again, your depth on knowledge is based on a quick google search.

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Why are you portraying him as a Nazi sympathizer? "It would be historically inaccurate to accuse Keynes of explicitly being either a Nazi sympathizer or an advocate of Soviet or fascist-type totalitarianism." -- Richard M. Ebeling, Keynesian Economics and the Hubris of the Social Engineer

I can't find this article on the web

Keynes and the Economic Activists of Pre-Hitler Germany

But perhaps you can.

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I doubt it would make a difference to you.

It won't make a difference to me, you're right. My opinion is based on more information then a top ten google hits search will yield.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I find that statement of your premise less than honest. Here's your remark where you first brought up graft: "A tax cut, that is funded by printing money to cover the shortfall redistribution of income, from top to bottom. So for the purposes of stimulus it is less effective, being government graft it doesnt[sic] necessarily flow to productive venture." (link) Don't pretend that you care a wit about poor people, or that you were thinking about the injustice of redistributing money from poor people to rich people. You're simply exploiting poor people to make your true beliefs sound noble. The premise on which your accusation of graft rests is that the state is never legitimate and therefore any government spending constitutes graft. I disagree with that premise.

Well, youre right in one thing, I mispoke. Printed money is introduced into the market in a way that takes from the bottom and gives to the top. The quoted line is pretty bad grammar, and I reversed the direction of wealth distribution. Of course rather than correct me, which you would no doubt do if you had any comfort level with the topic, you quote my statement further proving you're largely clueless of the domain.

I restated your quote to expose your flip flop and the lack of authenticity of your sudden shift to championing the poor. Meanwhile, the underlying premise of your accusation of graft sits there leaking water like a sieve.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I think McCain et al. would deny they were either.

And GW was protecting you from the terrorists, and Obama's going to filibuster a vote on telecom immunity, and Clinton never had sexual relations with that woman...

Those are not the same things. They might be if beltway reporters had the guts to ask McCain et al. about their Keynesian inclinations.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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No, you're the one who believes an invisible hand will tuck us all into bed at night. Game theory proves it!

I don't believe in an invisible hand, I do believe in spontaneous order. So does any game theorist worth discussing, as well as a variety of other sciences.

A rose by any other name...

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I see. So you're the expert, but you're not able to explain your area of expertise without recourse to jargon and when pressed on that deficiency, you complain and accuse and threaten to take your ball and go home.

I can't educate you on a subject you're forcefully ignorant of, no.

That's a poor excuse. Why don't you just own up to the fact that you're not a very good teacher?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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It seems to me that if you were offering contrary reasons, you wouldn't delete them from the ongoing context of the exchange. "because someone with exactly enough money to make it then gets more money yet still has exactly enough money to make it." By this reasoning, someone making millions remains at subsistence. That's a convenient trick. It allows for disguising policies that benefit the wealthy as policies that benefit the poor and people actually below subsistence remain cut out of the picture.

It means nothing of the sort. It means if it takes X to survive and that person receives X + some additional amount, then they no longer have only X.

Jargon must be your code word for basic verbage used to describe a topic you're clueless on.

That's not what you wrote earlier. Put in the terms you've just used, earlier you wrote, "someone with X, gets more money yet still has exactly X". No, exactly they have X plus some additional amount as you put it in your correction. You didn't rely on jargon in this case, yet you still managed to obscure the matter. It appears that unable to state your case clearly, you're resorting to personal attacks.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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So you say, but yet I'm still winning the argument...

This isn't an argument that is capable of being won. I'm in a poo throwing contest with a monkey at the zoo. It just took me a bit to figure it out.

Another personal attack. Yes, indeed, you are losing.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Yes, you don't like Lincoln, you don't like Roosevelt, you don't like Jefferson... you don't like America much do you?

I do like Jefferson, he's my favorite founder. I don't presume he'd witness what his creation has become today and not wish to extend or revise his initial work. For all your bluster you agree with me, whether you will admit it or not.

I've had to ask you twice about a key item from the Declaration of Independence, but you keep side stepping it. Maybe the third time will be the charm: "Do you agree that governments are instituted to secure natural rights?"

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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You write as if every government that has ever existed was always in debt.

And you happily narrow or expand the scope of the argument until you have some minor ledge to cling to rather than just drop an issue you're clearly mistaken on rather than admit it. Par for the course. Can you give me a country that runs a systemic budget surplus over the course of enough years for it to be considered the prevailing system?

Maybe there's a misunderstanding between us on this point, but my remarks regarding taxes and spending were in regard to government in general and not a specific government. So when you wrote, "If the government was at a large surplus then perhaps your sidestepping would be worth looking at.", I responded by restating the scope in which I've been arguing, not by expanding it. As for governments that have had budget surpluses, believe it or not but California had budget surpluses in the late 1990's [1]. Japan had surpluses in the late 1980's. Budget deficits may be the prevailing condition, but they're not the only condition.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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And I think your reading comprehension skills are seriously compromised. You're spinning one sentence from that preface to say that he advocated totalitarianism. You'll have to offer more than spin to make that assertion stick.

Again, your depth on knowledge is based on a quick google search.

On the contrary, you have to more or less know what you're looking for in order for a google search to be successful.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Why are you portraying him as a Nazi sympathizer? "It would be historically inaccurate to accuse Keynes of explicitly being either a Nazi sympathizer or an advocate of Soviet or fascist-type totalitarianism." -- Richard M. Ebeling, Keynesian Economics and the Hubris of the Social Engineer

I can't find this article on the web

Keynes and the Economic Activists of Pre-Hitler Germany

But perhaps you can.

Nothing freely available turns up. Just the same, if all you've got is a title, it's worth pointing out that the title refers to "pre-Hitler" Germany. Do you have an argument to make here or are you demonstrating that while you accuse me of being overly reliant on google, the fact is that without it, you are unable to present your argument?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I doubt it would make a difference to you.

It won't make a difference to me, you're right. My opinion is based on more information then a top ten google hits search will yield.

You admit that new information won't make a difference to you after deeming me "forcefully ignorant". How wonderfully hypocritical of you.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I'm not redefining reality. A military Keynesian typically denies the Keynesian aspects of deficit spending for military purposes. The hypocrisy of that denial has been on display in the media these last few weeks as Republicans in Congress issue their complaints against the stimulus bill. Government spending on school construction is pork, government spending on military contractors is national security. The redefinition of reality occurs in the media, where the common approach used by both parties is portrayed as fundamentally different rather than fundamentally based on the same economic principles. Because of that, it's necessary to start there in order to expose the commonality. McCain and friends don't advertise their Keynesianism, they disguise it as being "strong on national defense".

It's not a ball, it's a soccer ball. blah blah blah.

It sounds to me like LessBread's argument is that the media and/or GOP desires to portray soccer balls as non-balls (and demonize balls for no apparent reason) while he himself simply wants to point out that the difference between a soccer ball and a cannonball is pretty significant if your intention is to kick the thing.

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a 1300 series class

You keep referring to these classes, as if a graduate-level education were required to say anything meaningful about economics. I find that hard to believe, considering that I didn't find it would be even *useful* for *computer engineering*.