Ron Paul

[Mathematician]

Do liberals actually argue that Paul is wrong about the Federal Reserve and the boom/bust cycle?

The Federal Reserve is not an agent to all our economic woes. Recessions precede the Fed: in fact, by all standards the 19th century was more susceptible to capitalist contradictions than anything we've experienced, including the Great Depression. After the Civil War, our economy was in the red for close to 50% of the time.

You folks need to familiarize yourself with Libertarian philosophy before you decide you don't like it.

The abundance of irony being found in the fact real libertarian philosophy is based on socialism, not capitalism. "Capitalist libertarianism" (ie Ron Paul) is a relatively new petit-bourgeoisie phenomena whose origins are quite similar to fascism in that it's a reactionary response to new issues faced by progressive changes. Its success is dependent on marketing the center as appealing, but even there we run into problems. Although purely unscientific, most "capitalist libertarians" I've met are still bent towards the right. The Libertarian Party attests to this fact - since the late 80s all of its candidates have been pro-life. Ron Paul and Bob Barr are also religious zealots. Incidentally, Paul's "philosophy of liberty" was so pervasive that he saved us from the horrors of untraditional families by voting to ban gay adoption in DC.

How one can attack the state and then turn around and defend idle landlords is beyond my comprehension. They're the exact same thing.

 

[Mathematician]

Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard are not all Mr Burns type characters from The Simpsons. They had the audacity to assert that there exists spontaneous order in free markets that no governing body can improve on and that it is a conceit of the annoited to believe otherwise. They are in the company of H. L. Mencken, Wilhelm Roepke, Robert Heilbroner, Henry Hazlitt, Ayn Rand, Milton Freidman, Robert Nozick, Emanuel Kant, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, and on and on... all of whom would implicitly agree with the following statement:

A few amendments to your post:

- Thomas Paine was by all standards a forerunner for contemporary liberalism. He outlined a system for public retirement, progressive taxation, regulations on commerce, and benefits for the poor.

- Thomas Jefferson falls into a similar loop as Paine, albeit his focuses were more on progressive taxation and public education. His views on agrarian justice were in fact quite similar to the views espoused by early French socialists like Pierre Proudhon.

- John Locke supported the institution of slavery. I'm not exactly sure why people continuously reference him outside of historical precedent, because Locke's ideas are archaic at best - some even inflammatory in how they require an admittance of religious faith. Machiavelli excels Locke in significance and realism.

- Adam Smith was so reserved in some of his conclusions and so hostile to class antagonisms that he's actually one of Karl Marx's biggest (positive) influences; in fact, one could even argue, short of Darwin, he attributes more to Smith than anyone else. Just to keep this in check..

- Referencing Ayn Rand in good light is highly suspicion, given that she contributed nothing to philosophy that Aristotle didn't already touch on - which is kind of ironic, since she levied that same insult onto everyone else.

Hayek (and as an extension, Mises) were refuted by Sraffa's analysis of differing circumstances between single commodity barter economies and the complex economies of today. I don't have a dire hatred of the Austrian School, because in many ways they have contributed to the progression of economics, but the blind faith bestowed onto them by sheep is utterly disgusting, especially in light of the fact the Neo-Ricardians and Neo-Keynesians have refuted many of their assumptions. Rothbard was more of a philosopher than an actual economist.

 

[Zephyr]

A few amendments to your post:

- Thomas Paine was by all standards a forerunner for contemporary liberalism. He outlined a system for public retirement, progressive taxation, regulations on commerce, and benefits for the poor.

- Thomas Jefferson falls into a similar loop as Paine, albeit his focuses were more on progressive taxation and public education. His views on agrarian justice were in fact quite similar to the views espoused by early French socialists like Pierre Proudhon.

- John Locke supported the institution of slavery. I'm not exactly sure why people continuously reference him outside of historical precedent, because Locke's ideas are archaic at best - some even inflammatory in how they require an admittance of religious faith. Machiavelli excels Locke in significance and realism.

- Adam Smith was so reserved in some of his conclusions and so hostile to class antagonisms that he's actually one of Karl Marx's biggest (positive) influences; in fact, one could even argue, short of Darwin, he attributes more to Smith than anyone else. Just to keep this in check..

- Referencing Ayn Rand in good light is highly suspicion, given that she contributed nothing to philosophy that Aristotle didn't already touch on - which is kind of ironic, since she levied that same insult onto everyone else.

Hayek (and as an extension, Mises) were refuted by Sraffa's analysis of differing circumstances between single commodity barter economies and the complex economies of today. I don't have a dire hatred of the Austrian School, because in many ways they have contributed to the progression of economics, but the blind faith bestowed onto them by sheep is utterly disgusting, especially in light of the fact the Neo-Ricardians and Neo-Keynesians have refuted many of their assumptions. Rothbard was more of a philosopher than an actual economist.

Gene, why do you hate America and the glorious freedoms bestowed upon us by our benevolent captains of industry?

 

[Jackytar]

A few amendments to your post:

- Thomas Paine was by all standards a forerunner for contemporary liberalism. He outlined a system for public retirement, progressive taxation, regulations on commerce, and benefits for the poor.

- Thomas Jefferson falls into a similar loop as Paine, albeit his focuses were more on progressive taxation and public education. His views on agrarian justice were in fact quite similar to the views espoused by early French socialists like Pierre Proudhon.

- John Locke supported the institution of slavery. I'm not exactly sure why people continuously reference him outside of historical precedent, because Locke's ideas are archaic at best - some even inflammatory in how they require an admittance of religious faith. Machiavelli excels Locke in significance and realism.

- Adam Smith was so reserved in some of his conclusions and so hostile to class antagonisms that he's actually one of Karl Marx's biggest (positive) influences; in fact, one could even argue, short of Darwin, he attributes more to Smith than anyone else. Just to keep this in check..

- Referencing Ayn Rand in good light is highly suspicion, given that she contributed nothing to philosophy that Aristotle didn't already touch on - which is kind of ironic, since she levied that same insult onto everyone else.

Hayek (and as an extension, Mises) were refuted by Sraffa's analysis of differing circumstances between single commodity barter economies and the complex economies of today. I don't have a dire hatred of the Austrian School, because in many ways they have contributed to the progression of economics, but the blind faith bestowed onto them by sheep is utterly disgusting, especially in light of the fact the Neo-Ricardians and Neo-Keynesians have refuted many of their assumptions. Rothbard was more of a philosopher than an actual economist.

I'll defer to all of this as you clearly have a deeper foundation of knowledge on these historical figures than I have or care to have. You may not have noticed I entitled that post "Name dropping is fun and makes me appear smarter than I am." - in an attempt to prevent the debate from devolving in such a manner. I pulled those names out of my *** and you "caught" me.

To me Libertarian thought boils down to this. Economic and social/political behavior present us with a level of complexity unfathomable to the human mind. That when you naively press in on one part of this balloon you will not be able to predict what part or parts will pop out, and by pushing that part back in you compound this problem until the balloon eventually deforms beyond recognition and pops. Think war on drugs with the associated violence and packed prisons, the mounting insolvency of Medicare and Social Security, the losing technology of ethanol and the entrenched interests that support it, the folly of nation building, the casino atmosphere of the shadow financial markets...

Then think iPhone and other rapid advances in technology, oil extracted from beneath the north sea, refined into gasoline, and delivered to my gas tank for less than three bucks a gallon taxes and royalties paid. Four hundred million Asians lifted out of poverty. Four dollar monthly prescriptions at Walmart. Jeffery Canada and his amazing successes in early childhood development in Harlem that trumped all government efforts. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

The lesson I get from all this is to stop poking the damn balloon. It is a conceit to believe you can predict the outcome because of the complexity. Set *and enforce* rules for fair play based on the simple principles of person, property and liberty. Not so we can all get buried in consumer goods - to place economic growth above all else. In fact, many things will be more expensive under such a system. Chicken factories would no longer be able to poison Chesapeake bay. Protection of property trumps chicken efficiency. And speculators will have to find more productive work. The economic actors would have to play fair and be accountable to each other, using sound economic principles. Supply and demand. Intrinsic value. No government guarantees, real or implied. No government favors.

I noticed you are a Libertarian socialist. What's all that about? Can you sell me?

Jackytar

 

[yossarian22]

Not sure I entirely agree with you here, but I agree that the rich have some issues with wealth. Not just money mind you, but in owning the means of production. So long as the means of production remain the hands of a few, there will never be economic or social justice.

Everyone must have the chance to be equal though. When a white boy from a rich family and a native girl from a poor family have the same opportunity to make a good living for him/herself, I'll be satisfied.

They certainly do have too much wealth.

This graph speaks for itself really.
Guess when the US began to embrace economic liberalism?

 

[Joe_Stocks]

Hi Gene,

Good to talk to you again.

The Federal Reserve is not an agent to all our economic woes. Recessions precede the Fed: in fact, by all standards the 19th century was more susceptible to capitalist contradictions than anything we've experienced, including the Great Depression. After the Civil War, our economy was in the red for close to 50% of the time.

Not all our economic woes, but certainly this recession. Government created the housing bubble.

 

[yossarian22]

Hi Gene,

Good to talk to you again.



Not all our economic woes, but certainly this recession. Government created the housing bubble.

No it didn't.
The bubble was created by a neurotic relationship between lending banks and Wall Street.

What essentially happened was this. Wall Street firms bought mortgages through credit (boosting their profits). The Wall Street broker who buys the mortgage sees extremely low risk because, even if the family defaults, the broker now owns a piece of property whose value will rise anyways. Private investors want in on this and get securities and CDOs and soforth based on these properties. The relationship between brokers and private investors creates massive demand, which travels down the entire relationship. Lending banks don't care about the risk of a loan anymore because they can sell it to Wall Street for massive short term profits. Lending banks relax their lending policies heavily in order to create more mortgages to families normally considered unqualified, so home prices rise due a boost in demand (made possible with cheap credit). The bad mortgages begin to default, causing the supply of homes to rise (see where this is going yet?). This causes the price of houses to drop. This causes normally good mortgages to default because nobody wants to pay $4,000,000 for a $1,000,000 house.

This system IS sustainable, but only if a certain number of actors in the market don't choose to enter this massively profitable venture. But, this being the free market, all actors are independent, so each one of them wants to get into the market.

So no, the only thing the government had to do with this recession was poor regulation. The market decisions of the fed made the above system stable for a longer period of time, but this would have happened regardless of how strict/loose credit was because the lending banks would have made credit cheap anyways.

 

[Joe_Stocks]

Hi yo,

What essentially happened was this. Wall Street firms bought mortgages through credit (boosting their profits). The Wall Street broker who buys the mortgage sees extremely low risk because, even if the family defaults, the broker now owns a piece of property whose value will rise anyways. Private investors want in on this and get securities and CDOs and soforth based on these properties. The relationship between brokers and private investors creates massive demand, which travels down the entire relationship. Lending banks don't care about the risk of a loan anymore because they can sell it to Wall Street for massive short term profits. Lending banks relax their lending policies heavily in order to create more mortgages to families normally considered unqualified, so home prices rise due a boost in demand (made possible with cheap credit). The bad mortgages begin to default, causing the supply of homes to rise (see where this is going yet?). This causes the price of houses to drop. This causes normally good mortgages to default because nobody wants to pay $4,000,000 for a $1,000,000 house.

That you leave out Fannie and Freddie who accounted for roughly 6 trillions dollars (about half) of the mortgage market is very revealing.

This graph speaks for itself really.

No it doesn't. Families have become considerably smaller meaning they are worth much less. Flawed argument from statistics.

 

[yossarian22]

Hi yo,

That you leave out Fannie and Freddie who accounted for roughly 6 trillions dollars (about half) of the mortgage market is very revealing.

And how much did they account for in the subprime market (ya know, the one that exploded and caused the crash. The one that was created by massive demand from Wall Street and private investors. The one that, if it had never existed, this whole mess would not have happened)?

Less than 20%.

The remaining 80% or so was from private lenders, the majority of whom were not affected by the community reinvestment act. The CRA, which you are obliquely trying to pin the blame on, perhaps made lenders realize the massive profits that could be made from securitizing bad mortgage earlier than they would have. But again, The crash was caused by the free market. It literally was the tragedy of the commons.

I wonder what debunked talking point will be trotted out next. Shall we blame the poor perhaps?

No it doesn't. Families have become considerably smaller meaning they are worth much less. Flawed argument from statistics.

Ah yes, the glory days of America when children and similar dependents provided a vast amount of income to each family.

Oh wait.

e: Im not even going to bother with a debate over this

^you are wrong and that is why

 

[Zephyr]

And how much did they account for in the subprime market (ya know, the one that exploded and caused the crash. The one that was created by massive demand from Wall Street and private investors. The one that, if it had never existed, this whole mess would not have happened)?

Less than 20%.

The remaining 80% or so was from private lenders, the majority of whom were not affected by the community reinvestment act. The CRA, which you are obliquely trying to pin the blame on, perhaps made lenders realize the massive profits that could be made from securitizing bad mortgage earlier than they would have. But again, The crash was caused by the free market. It literally was the tragedy of the commons.

I wonder what debunked talking point will be trotted out next. Shall we blame the poor perhaps?

Ah yes, the glory days of America when children and similar dependents provided a vast amount of income to each family.

Oh wait.

e: Im not even going to bother with a debate over this

^you are wrong and that is why

Edit: nvm weird. I coulda sworn Waffleimages only worked on SA.

Edit2: Your image is being weird with me, loading sometimes and not others. If anybody else is having a problem with it, I can rehost it. It really is a good graph.

 

[yossarian22]

That is weird. Normally waffleimages works wherever. I'll just repost the graph from wikipedia.

 

[Zephyr]

Ach! Now the waffleimages thing is working for me again. Maybe my computer is just really weird or waffleimages was having server trouble again or something.

Didn't know you were a goon though. That's p cool.

 

[yossarian22]

Ach! Now the waffleimages thing is working for me again. Maybe my computer is just really weird or waffleimages was having server trouble again or something.

Didn't know you were a goon though. That's p cool.

Was anyways. I pretty much stopped posting on forums about a year ago. Refound this one through a bookmark. Not much has changed (same subjects same arguments ad nauseum. I probably won be posting here too often if at all)

 

[Zephyr]

Was anyways. I pretty much stopped posting on forums about a year ago. Refound this one through a bookmark. Not much has changed (same subjects same arguments ad nauseum. I probably won be posting here too often if at all)

LF turned me from a confused libertarian into a really really angry socialist. True story. I don't know how long it's been around, but LF is the best FYAD-lite.

 

[yossarian22]

LF turned me from a confused libertarian into a really really angry socialist. True story. I don't know how long it's been around, but LF is the best FYAD-lite.

D&D in general is the best way to convert people into being angry atheist socialists. Too bad SA requires an account with archives for older threads, or I literally would just start posting old threads in response to aggravatingly repeated talking points. Just posting the D&D mainpage is problematic because SA randomly goes into "need an account to read" mode.

But I also used to be a libertarian, but it wasn't SA that stopped that. I realized I was dead wrong as soon as I saw those two graphs. There is literally no way to reconcile either graph with libertarianism.

 

[Zephyr]

D&D in general is the best way to convert people into being angry atheist socialists. Too bad SA requires an account with archives for older threads, or I literally would just start posting old threads in response to aggravatingly repeated talking points. Just posting the D&D mainpage is problematic because SA randomly goes into "need an account to read" mode.

LF is way more effective IMO. I may need to copy that "I dare you to find a worst company than DeBeers" thread for us here. It is literally one of the most disgusting things I have ever read, from the Bhopal Disaster to the Bayer contaminated blood medicine. It's not often that I feel a push to take my rifle to the streets, but damn it if I wasn't close there.

Anyways, back on topic. Ron Paul: Reptilian spy?

 

[T-Dawg]

Er, how exactly would D&D convert someone into an angry atheist socialist? Is D&D really as evil as I have been told, involving genuine demonic rituals and weird crap like that?
What does "LF" and "SA" stand for?

Also, could you explain to a total know-nothing-about-politics how the graphs disprove libertarianism? I don't understand what the graphs are trying to tell me .

 

[Zephyr]

Er, how exactly would D&D convert someone into an angry atheist socialist? Is D&D really as evil as I have been told, involving genuine demonic rituals and weird crap like that?
What does "LF" and "SA" stand for?

D&D stands for "Debate and Discussion". It's a subforum on another forum we've gone to. LF is Laissez's Fair, a similar, much more informal subforum largely full of Socialists and Anarchists. SA is Somethingawful.com, where these subforums are.

And no, Dungeons and Dragons has no demonic rituals or anything like that. The worst you'll ever get is a DM that hasn't had a shower in a while. You should play a game sometimes. It can be pretty fun and the new edition is really friendly to beginners.

Also, could you explain to a total know-nothing-about-politics how the graphs disprove libertarianism? I don't understand what the graphs are trying to tell me .

When the GDP per capita increases while the median income stagnates, it shows an increase in income inequality. More specifically, it shows that the rich are getting richer while the poor and middle classes stay.

 

[T-Dawg]

LF is Laissez's Fair, a similar, much more informal subforum largely full of Socialists and Anarchists.

A forum dedicated to the Laissez Fair crap that's inhabited by people who hate the infernal concept? What are the socialists and anarchists doing there? Tearing it down?

And no, Dungeons and Dragons has no demonic rituals or anything like that. The worst you'll ever get is a DM that hasn't had a shower in a while. You should play a game sometimes. It can be pretty fun and the new edition is really friendly to beginners.

So, uh, how does it convert people into angry atheist socialists then?

When the GDP per capita increases while the median income stagnates, it shows an increase in income inequality. More specifically, it shows that the rich are getting richer while the poor and middle classes stay.

Why is it bad for the rich to get richer as long as the poor and middle classes do not suffer as a result? (Of course, SOMEONE has to lose money for someone to gain money... who lost money?)

 

[Zephyr]

A forum dedicated to the Laissez Fair crap that's inhabited by people who hate the infernal concept? What are the socialists and anarchists doing there? Tearing it down?

The title is a joke. It was originally designed to horde in all the Paultards, but after the election (and as long as I've been there) it's been the awesome leftist hangout place.

So, uh, how does it convert people into angry atheist socialists then?

Helps you realize how much ******** capitalism is, mostly, as well as highlighting atrocities still being committed for religious causes. Hasn't shaken my faith one bit personally, but it's hard to argue the facts on an economic level.

Why is it bad for the rich to get richer as long as the poor and middle classes do not suffer as a result? (Of course, SOMEONE has to lose money for someone to gain money... who lost money?)

But the thing is, we do suffer as a result thanks to inflation and rising costs of living. Let's put it this way: you're making 500 bucks a year and I'm making 1000. That's cool though, because in this fantasy world you can live comfortably on that 500 if you're tight enough. Now let's jump to the future a bit. You're now making 600 bucks while I'm running around with a few thousand. Yay, we're both richer, so long as the cost of living doesn't change at all. The thing is, it has changed, and your old lifestyle would cost you 700 or more to maintain.