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Pseudo-demand, Pseudo-supply

Started by Xerographica, August 01, 2013, 12:21:06 PM

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surly74

#60
Quote from: "Mister Agenda"Every adult could have a base income of, say, $10,000 a year tax free; and no minimum wage. Employers would provide wages based on the usual considerations, like 'will people qualified to do this job do it for this much money?' Note that with this guaranteed income, you could have an income of $20,000 a year with a job that pays less than 5.00 an hour.

no you can't.

and in your example. to make 20,000 a year in a 40/hr work week that is $9.61 and hour. That's working 52 weeks. it's impossible to pay someone $5 an hour and have them make 20k a year. They would have to work almost 80 hours a week.

If we are going to throw out scenarios lets make them realistic.

but at least in Canada. My first 11K is taxed at 0 percent. If I make minimum wage then it's going to take me longer to get to that point then if I make say $25/hour.

Does the US have personal tax exemptions?
God bless those Pagans
--
Homer Simpson

The Skeletal Atheist

Just as an aside, the minimum wage in 1967 would've been around $10 in today's money:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-2 ... e-day.html

And if minimum wage was tied to productivity it would be around $17 (that's with a conservative estimate of productivity):
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cep ... mic-growth
(note footnote #1).

But yeah, whatever. We're paying these people too much! Lazy fucks! Working 60+ hours a week, having different positions get counted as different "jobs" so the employer doesn't have to pay their benefits, and getting paid barely enough to survive? Who the hell do they think they are?
Some people need to be beaten with a smart stick.

Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid!

Kein Mitlied F�r Die Mehrheit!

Xerographica

#62
Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I think this indicates why we cannot endorse your ideas.  The market, and society in general doesn't work as you seem to think it should.  You need to expand your thinking to encompass the whole, rather than just the parts.  Consider the doctor who states, "The operation was a success.  Unfortunately, the patient died."
My ideas are wrong, therefore you're choosing NOT to give me your limited time/money.  Therefore, my influence over how society's limited resources are used does not exceed the benefit I provide for others.  Yes, this is exactly how the market does NOT work.

You lack enough awareness to even grasp how my argument applies to this very situation of my sharing an idea on these forums.  This is you, choosing not to buy a ticket, for this crazy train.  And this has absolutely no significance or consequences?  

This is me, randomly knocking on your door, trying to sell you a product that you don't think will benefit you...therefore you say "no thanks".   Uh, what?  Obviously you value the very product that I'm trying to sell you.  If you didn't, then your response would have been, "let me buy it even though it really really does not match my preferences".  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"I did a little looking into pragmatarianism and it just doesn't look very pragmatic to me.  Way to narrow minded.
Markets work because they integrate infinitely more information than command economies.  You simply take this information (your preferences, circumstances) for granted when you decide to purchase...or forego....a product/service.  And it's impossible for you to imagine the total amount of information which goes into determining how markets allocate resources.  So there's nothing narrow minded about allowing the supply of public goods to be determined by everything that's on the minds of millions.  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"It also does not take into account how people really are.  Ask any salesperson and they will tell you, people don't buy what they need, they buy what they want.  Which is why you see so many Corvettes on the road.
So you don't know what you "need"...but congresspeople do?  How does it follow that somebody you've never even met knows what you "need"?  

Right now you have the wrong priorities...true or false?  Markets work because you're free to have the wrong priorities...and others are free to disagree with your priorities.  But if they value how you are using society's limited resources...if your use of society's limited resources match their priorities...then they'll give you their positive feedback.    

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"You have not convinced me that pragmatarnism would work in running a small general store, let alone the whole damn country.
Uh, what?  Why would I try and convince you that pragmatarianism would work in running a small general store?  So consumers would decide how Bob, the owner of the general store, allocates his revenue?  They'd buy some products...and then indicate how they want Bob to spend that money?  "Please spend this money on advertisement please".

Markets work because Bob makes educated guesses about the priorities/preferences of others.  If the products he puts on his shelves really do not match their preferences...then they won't give him their positive feedback...his influence over how society's limited resources are used won't increase...and he'll go out of business.  And this will be a net positive for society because the resources will be shifted from Bob to the business owners who have correctly guessed what the priorities/preferences of others are.  

In other words, in markets, it's demand that determines the supply.  The people who correctly guess what consumers are willing to pay for...stay in business and gain influence over how society's limited resources are used.  

In the public sector...there's just as much guessing going on...but there's no accurate feedback (shopping) to indicate whose guesses are the most accurate.  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"So how would getting rid of the minimum wage change anything.  The bottom 10%, hell the bottom 50% can do little to nothing to cause or stop inflation.  And the top 1% can use it to take even more money from those with less to "vote" with.
Again and again, markets work because influence can never exceed benefit.  Maybe it's not "perfect"...but it might as well be when compared to the alternative.  

The 1% making more money is the same thing as them receiving more positive feedback and increasing the total benefit that we derive from society's limited resources.  Oh the humanity?  The horror...the horror?    

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Yes, if the people of the world could have voted against WWII under pragmatarianism, it would never have happened.  Because there would be no need to try to expand any country's borders.  Enough people would have starved to death to make it not worth the bother.
Good call...food is never a priority for consumers.  I think you're a few history lessons short of the obvious.  Read up on the Great Leap Forward.

Xerographica

Quote from: "Colanth"I will grant you this - farm subsidies are NO LONGER needed (for the most part) - to keep farms in existence.  But if they ceased tomorrow, the cost of food would skyrocket.  And the poor would starve.
Farm subsidies exist because of cheap imports.  Why should American agribusiness try and compete with Mexican farmers?  It's far more profitable for them to spend their money on lobbying.  Get rid of the subsidies and both the poor in our country and in developing countries would benefit.  Our poor would get less expensive food and their poor would have their farm jobs.  

It's really twisted that you truly believe that corporate welfare really helps the poor.

Xerographica

Quote from: "Colanth"His statement.  Intelligent people don't think that most congresspeople are particularly knowledgeable.
Again, this clearly reveals your ignorance of public finance.  But what's the point of sharing the relevant information with you?  Obviously you find it impossible to believe that I've seriously studied the topic.  

Eh, what the heck.  I'll try anyways.  

The definitive, theoretical, justification/defense for the existence of the public sector was written by the Nobel Prize winning liberal economist Paul Samuelson.  His paper...The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure...is ridiculously short, but very to the point.  It's been cited over 5000 times.  

Our public sector is supported by tradition...and logic.  Take away tradition and we're left with Samuelson's paper.  

Of course, I could simply be using his paper as a straw man...a weak argument that is easy for me to destroy.   But, unlike most of you, I do make a genuine effort to understand my opponent's arguments...which is why I know your own arguments better than you do.  I haven't just thoroughly researched one side of the issue...I've researched both sides...and Samuelson's paper is the most widely cited defense of the public sector.  It's extremely doubtful that a stronger argument, that's been published, exists.  Of course I could be wrong...and given that I'm interested in the topic....would be extremely interested to read a more widely cited paper on the same topic.

Basically Samuelson's argument boils down to the free-rider problem.  He acknowledges that we would want to know the true demand for public goods...but, if taxation were voluntary, given that people would have an incentive to under-report their benefit...it's unlikely that we could ever determine what the true demand really is.  This isn't such a big deal for Samuelson though...because he's pretty confident in the ability of congress to divine the true demand for public goods.  

The thing is, he wasn't just confident that government planners could divine the true demand for public goods...he was also confident that government planners could divine the true demand for private goods as well...

QuoteThe Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive
Maybe Samuelson was wrong about government planners when it came to private goods...but right about their abilities when it comes to public goods?

Nope, you can either "know" the demand...or you can't.  It doesn't make a difference whether we're talking about defense or nachos.  You either know everybody's true preferences...or you do not.  

So where we at?  The definitive, theoretical, justification for our public sector is based on the assumption that congresspeople, like god, are omniscient.  I'm not making this up.  As usual though, you really don't have to take my word for it...

QuoteBut where Wicksell proceeded to examine the process of preference revelation, Samuelson provided a more general definition of the efficient solution. Preference revelation is disregarded as the model visualizes an omniscient referee to whom preferences are known. - Richard A. Musgrave   Public Finance
QuoteEssential though the efficiency model of public goods is as a theoretical construct, standing by itself it has little practical use.  The omniscient referee does not exist and the problem of preference revelation must be addressed.  The Wicksellian perspective is thus needed. - Richard A. Musgrave, The Nature of the Fiscal State
QuoteThe fact that such a tax institution always exists conceptually does not, of course, imply that it can be determined independently of the revealed choices of individuals themselves.  If an omniscient observer should be present, and if he were asked to "read" all individual preference maps, he could then describe the "optimal" structure of tax prices.  Failing this, there is no means of ascertaining with any degree of accuracy the "efficient" tax structure or institution. - James M. Buchanan, Public Finance in Democratic Process
QuoteOur discontent with the original Samuelson rule stems from its failure to account for tax payers' response to public expenditure and taxation. The rule was derived for an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent government, a government which, by definition, need not consider people's responses to its actions. Drop that assumption, restrict government to the choice of tax rates and public expenditures, and the response to its actions must be taken into account.   Dan Usher, Should the Samuelson Rule Be Modi?ed to Account for the Marginal Cost of Public Funds?
QuoteDeprived of this guidance, and without the incentive of personal interest, accounts and statistics, however complete, would be of very little use, and unless they were the mundane representatives of an omniscient providence, the directors of production would be quite unable to avoid occasional excess or deficiency of supply, which would cause terrible disorder and confusion, with effects infinitely more serious than mistakes made by private enterprise, which, as a whole, is never actuated by precisely similar motives; thus its errors correct each other, and being uninfluenced by prejudice, or amour proper, it shows a marvellous quickness of adoption; mistakes committed by the state would be not only far more serious, but far more difficult to remedy.   - Paul Leroy Beaulieu, Collectivism
Ok, so aside from tradition, it should be clear that our current system is based on the assumption that congresspeople are omniscient.  Clearly this is a false assumption, or else there wouldn't be any economists trying to figure out how to get individuals to reveal their true preferences for public goods.  

I'm sure we both agree that congresspeople are not omniscient...but you could argue that neither are consumers.  

QuoteIndividuals are not, of course, omniscient, even those who think themselves to be. The securing of information about the predicted effects of alternatives is a costly process, even in a world with reasonable certainty. Recognizing this, individual utility-maximizing behavior remains "rational" when choices are made on the basis of less-than-perfect information. There is some "optimal" investment in fact-finding and analysis for the deciding individual at each stage of his deliberation. - James M. Buchanan
Consumers don't have to be omniscient given that they are only allocating their own resources.  They know their own preferences and allocate their resources accordingly.  Given the fact that none of us are omniscient...all we can know about other people's preferences has to come from either their words or their actions.  Because words are cheap...it's far more accurate to look at actions in order to determine people's preferences.    

If we want the optimal supply of public goods to be produced...then we should simply allow taxpayers to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to.  It will be "optimal" because the supply of public goods would be determined by the demand for public goods.

surly74

Are you the Harvard grad student from Good Will Hunting?
God bless those Pagans
--
Homer Simpson

Xerographica

Quote from: "surly74"Are you the Harvard grad student from Good Will Hunting?
Naw, after the military, I went to a community college because my grades in high school were so lousy.  Manged to get into UCLA though...my best friend swears I only got in because I'm Mexican...he's probably right.  hah...stupid affirmative action.  

The Harvard Grad student in that movie was pretty obnoxious.  I'm sure I come off pretty much the same way though.  It's really not my intention...but my arguments challenge people's fundamental assumptions...on the left and right...so it's inevitable that they are going to be on the defensive...and then on the offensive.  And it's extremely difficult to not reply in kind.  The army infantry was great for all sorts of reasons...but not for helping me learn to turn the other cheek.  

Anyways, if somebody judges my arguments based on who I am as a person, rather than on their own merit, then they probably aren't smart enough to grasp the arguments anyways.  

Of course, if I was smarter then I'd be able make an argument that even the dullest tool in the cookie jar could easily follow.  Unfortunately, I'm not that smart.  Then again, it's pretty rare that any of these Nobel Prize winning economists present their ideas in a way that's easily accessible to most people.

LikelyToBreak

Xerographica wrote in part:
QuoteUh, what? Why would I try and convince you that pragmatarianism would work in running a small general store?
Because if it doesn't work in a general store, how in the world could it work in running a country?  Although there is much more involved in a country, a general store is a microcosm of the country.  If it would go under using pragmatarianism, then you could expect the country to as well.

But, you are correct in thinking that the country is run differently.  The Federal Reserve determines how much money will be available and at what interest rates.  This is a private group of bankers who don't give a damn about the country, let alone its' people.  They just care about their money, which to them is just a way of keeping score while they play a game with people's lives.  This is most of the 1% which controls 85% of the money.  They don't guess about what the demand is, they make the demand.

Without figuring the Federal Reserve into your ideas, they are bound to be wrong.

Xerographica also wrote in part:
QuoteThe 1% making more money is the same thing as them receiving more positive feedback and increasing the total benefit that we derive from society's limited resources. Oh the humanity? The horror...the horror?
They don't give a flying rat's ass feedback from society.  They see all of the resources as theirs, which they allow us peasants to have a little of.  And they are not maximizing the total benefit from society's limited resources.  They are maximizing profits to themselves.  If someone comes along and has a way to better maximize the limited resources, but they don't have a stake in it, they shut them down.  

Colanth wrote:
QuoteLikelyToBreak wrote:
"The bottom 10%, hell the bottom 50% can do little to nothing to cause or stop inflation."

Neither can the top 1%. Capitalism is based on inflation. If you want to stop inflation you have to stop Capitalism.
Which is true, but the top 1% er's use inflation to get more of the limited resources under their control.  Thus, getting themselves a bigger piece of the pie.

I believe the Capitalism which you are talking about, is the Capitalism controlled by the top 1%.  Julius Caesar had a way of ensuring the top 1%er's didn't have any control.  He made up charges against them and seized their property.  Making sure they weren't alive to protest too strongly as well.   :Hangman:   Caesar's type of Capitalism might just work, if it was modified a little.  :twisted:

NatsuTerran

The whole disagreement here is summed up by the different underlying moral goals we are trying to get at. That guy only thinks people's preferences are what matters. A famous quote goes something like " There are only two tragedies: Not getting what you want, and getting what you want."

From a utilitarian standpoint (i.e. the only logical moral standpoint, because who would want to be born into a less probable society in terms of granting well-being?) people's decisions are not inherently correct. People make mistakes, so it becomes obvious that by giving people free choice about every little thing leads them to making crucial mistakes. Why do people make mistakes? Because their needs and wants are at war with each other, among other things. What is someone who is rationalizing about your well-being, but not directly experiencing, doing? They have the ability to rationalize about your well-being based on needs in the long run, rather than being carried away by subjective wants that override rationality.

Like when my dad had a ruptured appendix, he had harsh pains but refused to see a doctor because he thought it would blow over after the weekend. My mom yelled and *forced* him to see a doctor. What happened was his life was saved because he would have died if he waited.

People make mistakes. People don't know what is best for themselves. Why wouldn't he go to the doctor? Comfort reasons. Sometimes it's a hassle to get up and drive somewhere while you're in pain. It maybe sounded more comfortable to wait until it blows over while laying in bed. So in this case a "preference" would lead to disastrous outcomes down the road. People may understand their initial preferences, but they do not understand their future preferences very well, and they are sometimes bad at deciding *which* competing preferences give the best overall results. Morally speaking, we should seek to maximize good results in terms of a person's overall life cycle, and not just their initial choices. In terms of luxuries and hobbies, like what you do in your free time, why not be libertarian or pragmatarian? If you get burned or lose a couple bucks or whatever, so what? You learn from the mistake and identify better with what preferences you should look for. But when it comes to basic well-being and not luxury, it is a moral imperative to guarantee utilitarianism.

Cognitive Psychology basically proves human irrationality when people only make decisions for themselves, as well as showing how and why people are more rational thinking in someone else's shoes. People routinely overestimate their ability to adapt to small discomforts in luxuries and routinely underestimate the importance of basic needs in comparison to these things. People are children. The response that "So Congress knows what you need more than you do?" is fallacious and a straw-man, but there is a point to be said about this. Psychology has demonstrated consistently that people are better decision makers about other people rather than themselves. This is because we still may have an idea of what that person "prefers," but we have a stronger sense of what is objectively more important and thus overshadows their initial preferences. People let subjective wants overshadow objective needs far too much. And if this doesn't happen as much with individuals making decisions about their own lives, it definitely comes into play when people are expected to care about others when they don't have to.

So ask yourself, who would you rather be? My dad when granted complete sovereignty? Or my dad when he is coerced in some areas? You can say you want liberty without experiencing it, but once you are in the shoes of the miserable, you realize it to be objectively the worse position. There are such a thing as objective values that can be answered by science. Our values aren't just a bunch of relativism that should be treated as sacred because no one knows better. Just like he makes the straw man of saying Congress is omniscient about our wants and needs, I can say that he is stupid for thinking individuals are omniscient about their own wants and needs. And even if I couldn't, I can definitely say that individuals are most certainly not omniscient about what policies lead to utilitarianism, which is the ultimate goal, and the be all end all of what any decision should be based on.


Another example from a Cog. Psych. book I have is someone who could get a really good and cheap apartment as opposed to a more expensive and cramped one. The person may go for the expensive apartment because the cheap one is close to a busy road with car noises. But we know through the science of the brain that the person will quickly adapt to the car noises and it will not be a problem at all for their *future preferences.* People routinely get wrong their future preferences, but they are entirely predictable, manufacture-able even, by simply taking yourself out of their position and looking at things objectively. That guy's problem is that he thinks preferences are the be all, end all, and that there is no such thing as an objective moral value like statistics regarding various aspects of societal well-being.

To clear myself of potential straw mans, I'm not saying no one should make a single decision for themselves since we are bad at it. I am saying that there should be a group whose job is to make decisions about common pitfalls that effect everyone. This keeps people from needing to be vigilant in life, which is the most important freedom. We should have a "package" of guaranteed well-being that is made for everyone, so that our needs are settled and out of the way, and then all the rest of our decisions as they apply to our wants and preferences can have free reign after this point. So that our minds aren't bogged down trying to be vigilant about a bunch of things that will likely slip through the cracks and catch us. Of course, this guy is probably going to come in here saying I don't understand economics. I don't care, and you know why? Because this isn't about economics, it's about morality and it's about human psychology. Whatever is best economically has no bearing on what is best morally or whether it even works by misunderstanding human psychology. I'm done with this thread.

Xerographica

NatsuTerran, nice hit and run..."oh yeah, psychology proves all of what I'm saying...but I'm not going to stick around to cite my sources.  Why?  Because psychology trumps economics."

LOL...weaksauce.  Here's some psychology for you...

QuoteKahn and Baron's (1995) results represent additional evidence in support of psychologists' assertion that contrary to rational choice theory, people do not always hold stable and clearly ordered preferences that are simply retrieved at the moment of the choice. On the contrary, according to psychology research, most of the time, people do not know their preferences before their decision-making task, but they construct them on the spot during the decision process; therefore, preferences are subject to contextual influences (Feldman and Lynch 1988; Payne, Bettman, and Johnson 1993). - Simona Botti and Sheena S. Iyengar, The Dark Side of Choice
...and here's some economics...

QuoteIndividuals do not act so as to maximize utilities described in ''independently existing functions''. They confront genuine choices, and the sequence of decisions taken may be conceptualized, ''ex post'' (after the choices), in terms of "as if" functions that are maximized. But these "as if" functions are, themselves, generated in the choosing process, not separately from such process. - James M. Buchanan, Order Defined in the Process of its Emergence
What's the difference?  Oops, you didn't stick around did you?  You bravely ran away.  

Yup, unlike yourself...I can actually back up my claims.  Take this paper for example...Behavioral Law and Economics: Its Origins, Fatal Flaws, and Implications for Liberty

It destroys your point.  Same thing with this study by Joel Waldfogel...

QuoteConsumers fare better [at identifying their own preferences] than all types of givers except significant others and possibly grandparents...it seems unlikely that an alternative chooser would do better than friends, siblings, and parents, all of whom have substantial amounts of information about the ultimate consumer's preferences. - Joel Waldfogel, Does Consumer Irrationality Trump Consumer Sovereignty?
As you can see...your anecdotal story about your mother coercing your father for his own good really disproves my argument.   LOL...naw, it really doesn't.  

And to prove that I've actually studied both sides of the issue...here's a pretty great lecture by the Psychologist Barry Schwartz...The Paradox of Choice.  If NatsuTerran actually knew what he pretends to know, he would have shared that video...and all the other sources that supposedly support his claims.  He knew that he wouldn't be able to though...which is why he bravely ran away.  

Oh well...it did give me the opportunity to share both sides of the argument with anybody truly interested in the topic of paternalism (soft or otherwise) versus individual freedom.

Xerographica

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Because if it doesn't work in a general store, how in the world could it work in running a country?  Although there is much more involved in a country, a general store is a microcosm of the country.  If it would go under using pragmatarianism, then you could expect the country to as well.
Ok, the general store represents the public sector?  A taxpayer walks into the general store and puts some items in his shopping cart...quite a bit of defense, some infrastructure, a little bit of public healthcare...and so on.  He pays for his items and leaves.  And then the store owner makes sure that the shelves are adequately stocked?  

Yeah, we can pretend that the public sector is one store and the private sector is another store.  In the private sector store...you decide what goes in your shopping cart.  In the public sector store...somebody you may or may not have voted for decides for you.  

When you exit the private store...the items you go home with match your preferences... because you're the one who selected them.  When you exit the public store...the items you go home with do not match your preferences...because you're not the one who selected them.  

Value is destroyed when we go home with items which do not match our preferences.  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"But, you are correct in thinking that the country is run differently.  The Federal Reserve determines how much money will be available and at what interest rates.  This is a private group of bankers who don't give a damn about the country, let alone its' people.  They just care about their money, which to them is just a way of keeping score while they play a game with people's lives.  This is most of the 1% which controls 85% of the money.  They don't guess about what the demand is, they make the demand.

Without figuring the Federal Reserve into your ideas, they are bound to be wrong.
What percentage of taxpayers would choose to give their taxes to the Federal Reserve?

If you argue that a large percentage would...then you're arguing that many people derive benefit from how the Fed is using society's limited resources.  If you argue that a small percentage would...then you're arguing that few people derive benefit from how the Fed is using society's limited resources.  Therefore, you're arguing that the Fed is not truly a public good.  

My argument, in case you missed it, is that the preference revelation problem is a real problem.  I have no idea what the demand for the Fed is anymore than I know what the demand for the EPA is.  If taxpayers could choose where their taxes go, then we would then know what the actual demand for public goods really is.  And then we would be able to easily and readily identify any public goods whose benefit was too narrow for them to qualify as truly "public" goods.  

And again, we would know whether a public good's benefit was narrow if too few taxpayers spent their tax dollars on it.  

For example...is the war on drugs truly a public good?  That depends on what percentage of taxpayers would choose to spend their own taxes on the war on drugs.  The larger the percentage...the more public goodness.  The smaller the percentage...the less public goodness.  If the percentage was too small...then the general public might want to remove it from the "menu".  

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"They don't give a flying rat's ass feedback from society.  They see all of the resources as theirs, which they allow us peasants to have a little of.  And they are not maximizing the total benefit from society's limited resources.  They are maximizing profits to themselves.  If someone comes along and has a way to better maximize the limited resources, but they don't have a stake in it, they shut them down.
They don't give a rat's ass about positive feedback?  In other words, they don't give a rats ass about revenue?  Then why do they spend money on advertising their products?

LikelyToBreak

Xerographica wrote in part:  
QuoteTherefore, you're arguing that the Fed is not truly a public good.
Let me be clear on this.  The Federal Reserve is a monstrosity forced on the American people by really rich men who are busy taking us to the cleaners.  The Federal Reserve is a private institution.  It is not a part of the government.  There may not be any reserves either, as they are exempt from being audited.  It is a collection of banks, ran by bankers who own the banks.  The bill to establish them was passed when congress was supposed to be in recess.  But, the bankers friends in congress, you know the ones bought and paid for, came back into a secret session with just enough to establish a quorum.  Then Wilson was beguiled into signing the bill.  Something which Wilson later regretted.  

So, no the Fed "is not truly a public good."  It is run for and by a few super rich people.  They have let inflation rise for their own profit.  They were established to supposedly reduce inflation and alleviate depressions.  Since then inflation has skyrocketed and we had the Great Depression and several smaller ones.  Which the Fed was behind.

He are led to believe it is just another part of the government, when it is not.  The government gets to have a presidential appointee, who is sometimes allowed into meetings.  This appointee, always has ties to the banking industry.  In other words, we are sending in a fox to watch the other foxes as they play in the chicken coop.

Any economic idea which does not take the Federal Reserve into account, is a flawed idea from the start.  Because it starts with a flawed premise.

Just so everyone understands, I hate the Fed.  :evil:  They do no good for anyone, other than the rich bastards who run it.  Clear enough everyone?

surly74

Quote from: "Xerographica"
Quote from: "surly74"Are you the Harvard grad student from Good Will Hunting?
Naw, after the military, I went to a community college because my grades in high school were so lousy.  Manged to get into UCLA though...my best friend swears I only got in because I'm Mexican...he's probably right.  hah...stupid affirmative action.  

The Harvard Grad student in that movie was pretty obnoxious.  I'm sure I come off pretty much the same way though.  It's really not my intention...but my arguments challenge people's fundamental assumptions...on the left and right...so it's inevitable that they are going to be on the defensive...and then on the offensive.  And it's extremely difficult to not reply in kind.  The army infantry was great for all sorts of reasons...but not for helping me learn to turn the other cheek.  

Anyways, if somebody judges my arguments based on who I am as a person, rather than on their own merit, then they probably aren't smart enough to grasp the arguments anyways.  

Of course, if I was smarter then I'd be able make an argument that even the dullest tool in the cookie jar could easily follow.  Unfortunately, I'm not that smart.  Then again, it's pretty rare that any of these Nobel Prize winning economists present their ideas in a way that's easily accessible to most people.


there were some similiarities. you could be right on the money, or totally off the mark I have no idea. I don't think anyone here is judging your argument as a person, everyone here is here because they value evidence and challenging of assumptions. It's how it's done. A Nobel Prize winning economist telling someone they are ignorant of something is one thing, on an annoynomous message board just comes across as a weak argument. beat them with facts and reason. You may have thought you were doing that but veiled insults ruin it for me at least.

It's an interesting converstation, i can't be part of it as much as i want, knowledge and where I live for example. For the record I'm trying my hardest to become part of the 1% but i do have a bit of socialist still in me.
God bless those Pagans
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Homer Simpson

Jack89

@Xerographica - Why are you posting on these forums?  What are your intentions?  If you're trying to convince people that you have good ideas that they should consider, you're going about it all wrong.  Some of your ideas are interesting, but your approach sucks.  You come of as pretentious and condescending, which certainly isn't the way to persuade and influence others.  
Even if your ideas are the greatest thing since sliced bread, not too many will take you seriously with your present attitude.

Jack89

Quote from: "Jack89"@Xerographica - Why are you posting on these forums?  What are your intentions?  If you're trying to convince people that you have good ideas that they should consider, you're going about it all wrong.  Some of your ideas are interesting, but your approach sucks.  You come off as pretentious and condescending, which certainly isn't the way to persuade and influence others.  
Even if your ideas are the greatest thing since sliced bread, not too many will take you seriously with your present attitude.