There is no real reason for me to respond to this very un-serious post by The Second Stone.
Why don’t you try again with some serious critiques of Austrian theory. Why not add something substantial to the thread?
I certainly don’t want large companies ripping off people. What we don’t want is corporations taking over our government. Thats called Fascism. We want business and government to be completely separate. Businesses must rise and fall on their own merits. To become wealthy they must provide a good or service that is superior in quality otherwise they go bankrupt. No bailouts.
There are certainly other countries that aren’t in the trouble we are in. There are various reasons for that. What you describe, surpluses in good times and deficits in bad times is the way Keynesian theory is supposed to work. If we actually EVER ran a surplus things wouldn’t be so bad. But it doesn’t work that way. We run deficits ALL the time and are expected to run especially high deficits in a downturn. If we had sound money and no Federal Reserve we wouldn’t have recessions and depressions at all. And we could run surpluses year after year.
Australia and Canada don’t have the debt that we have. That is a mark in their favor. They are far from perfect.
As far as what I think is the measure of a great society, how about this: The wealth and prosperity of its people. The education and achievements of its citizens and institutions. The low level of crime and safety of its cities and towns.
How about that?
I am very impressed with this post. You clearly know your history and economics unlike some around here.
I predict that Austrian economics will become a well known competing school of thought to the Keynesian theories in the next decade. Even if one does not agree, it deserves to be seriously debated and presented as an option for the American people to consider.
Is that the way it was in the 1800’s, when we were on the gold standard, with no Fed? I forget, somebody look it up…
[ul]
[li]Panic of 1819[/li][li]Panic of 1837[/li][li]Panic of 1857[/li][li]Panic of 1873[/li][li]Panic of 1884[/li][li]Panic of 1890[/li][li]Panic of 1893[/li][li]Panic of 1896[/li][/ul]
Do you really think that the Founders envisioned an income tax, not to mention the many taxes we are burdened with to pay for a government vastly beyond the limits of the Republic they constructed?
There was never supposed to be a tax on income. The founders would be horrified if they knew we had to pay forty percent of our income to the government each year.
Yeah, I certainly don’t want to join a militia. Isn’t there a happy medium between violent uprising and passively participating in a predetermined horse race every four years?
What is your point? Its called civil disobedience. If enough of us peacefully refused to pay our taxes we could change this system we currently have. There is also a very persuasive argument that the income tax was not properly ratified and is therefore illegal. Look at this site:
http://www.thelawthatneverwas.com/new/home.asp
There is no shame in being a tax protester.
I believe the founders trusted the people to know what kind of government they wanted, and what kind of tax they thought was just. That is why they created a representative form of government, with the ability to amend the Constitution as the world changes. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Why don’t you just use the Constitutionally provided means for changing the law, or amending the Constitution? Or is that not convenient to your ideology?
Considering that they were a bunch of rich guys I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they’d hate the idea of a tax that actually puts a fair burden on the wealthy. So what? Why should we look to the principles of people who, again, were a bunch of genocidal, slaveowning rich men for guidance? They probably would have been horrified that women and poor people and blacks can vote too; should we throw out those changes too?
Yes, change it into a bloodthirsty anarchy when everything collapses because everyone is refusing to pay for the governmental machinery that keeps the country running. That extra money in your pocket will feel real good when you are being beaten to death by the local warlord’s thugs as your house burns.
In Libertopia, if I peacefully squat on your property and eat your vegetables, is there any shame in that?
Gold is very useful for making corrosion-resistant electrical contacts.
That was one of the very first tea party rallies held and was also the largest. If the GOP had their tentacles in the Tea Party at that time, then it was all a sham to begin with. It also took place in one of the few major cities in America where blacks are the majority of the population. If THAT can’t get 15% turnout (hell, I can’t see evidence that it had 1%), then nothing can.
Hell, here is another one, also in Atlanta, where the main speaker was the most popular token black that the tea party has to offer (Herman “Godfather’s Pizza” Cain). Count the black people. I’ll help you out. Let’s see, there is one (Herman)… well, that one guy in the fourth row has a slight tan or a shadow on him, so we’ll say two. Did I miss any?
It’s time to put up and tell us which protest you’re referring to, so we can verify for ourselves.
Okay, I’ve read the OP’s manifesto. Skimmed yesterday. Read it in full today, twice, once this morning and again this evening. A few thoughts.
First, if you want to engage people in discussion, you should leave out the ad hominems, the condescension and the question begging (e.g., not everyone who disagrees with you is stupid). I counted half a dozen of these in the first paragraph and would estimate about a hundred across the whole piece. With several dozen more in the posts since. This is no way to influence people.
Second, although the thesis isn’t altogether unsound, it’s not particularly good either. Submitted as a paper in an undergraduate class in political economics (without the ad hominems, etc. and adding citations), it probably would merit about a “B.” Not bad, but not qualifying you as high poobah of national economic policy. Especially when it appears you don’t actually have any credentials in the subject. In this context, “believe me” doesn’t mean squat.
Third, it’s all very well to say how you would organize things if you were high poobah writing on a blank slate, but that’s not how things work in the real world. In the real world, these and myriad related topics go through the sausage grinder of politics, where the libertarians are but one voice among dozens. In this mish mash, the only part of the libertarian agenda which sticks is the part about cutting taxes, which only makes the deficit problem worse. Ever hear of the law of unintended consequences?
Fourth, you do your argument no service by getting side-tracked on the gold standard issue. As you say (Post #182), “True wealth is manufacturing jobs, goods and services, industry and capital accumulation.” What medium of exchange we use for those things - whether gold-based, wampum, fiat money or something else - is trivial. All that matters is that the medium of exchange be understood and trusted. The real wealth is the stuff.
Fifth, if you want to understand why we don’t have as much prosperity as formerly - which is both true and untrue - you should expand your view to such problems as the loss of our manufacturing base, the balance of trade deficit and externalities like pollution and global warming. Really, economics if frightfully complicated. You’ve only grazed the surface.
There is more, but I’m not inclined to bother. Frankly, I don’t engage in debates where I’ve been told in advance that disagreement means I don’t understand. Besides, it seems you already have more Interlocutors than you can handle. So, feel no need to respond to this post. I’ve only gone to the trouble for your own edification. Take from it (or not) as you see fit.
Seriously?
Hell, the move to the Federal Reserve System was in large part a response to the 1907 panic.
Upon further reading, I see that Fear Itself has already replied to your bogus claim, so ignore my previous post with the list of pre-Great Depression panics. Feel free to respond to him/her, though. 
I must admit that despite thinking you’re mostly deluded I respect the fact that you are willing to try and defend your positions and to do so without personal animosity (except to Der Trihs, but I’d ignore him if I were you. Neither of you will change each others mind).
A lot of your points are even very sound. Balancing the budget, reducing spending, promoting economic competetiveness and stopping overseas adventurism are all worthy goals that many people on both sides of the aisle agree on.
What I don’t understand is why you think this requires completely rebuilding the economic model? These things aren’t direct results of leaving the gold standard, they are problems caused by America’s disfunctional politics. This sort of mis-identification of cause and effect is a common thread running through all your arguments.
For instance, you claim that wealth inequality has been increasing and that this is the direct result of welfare programs and inflation. I would suggest that it has much more to do with globalisation (and the shift in labour markets that has brought with it) and the rest of the world catching up to America’s economic success. You should note that all of these are direct results of the Free Markets. It’s not even a given that America’s previous economic leadership was entirely due to it’s limited government and low regulation, though I would say that it helped, since you also benefitted from vast virgin resources, a huge internal market (very helpful in the time before globalisation) and the rest of the world screwing itself in two world wars.
By ignoring these nuances you have come to form the basis for your theory on unsound assumptions such as:
- More economic freedom and limited government is the only way to achieve prosperity.
- The move away from this is the main reason for America’s decline.
Both of which are, in my view, missing most of the big picture. This results in you proposing economic theories that just don’tmatch up to reality.
This is prime example or the trap Libertarians fall into:
Economic freedon is not the only sort of freedom. If you have a choice between working 12 hours a day for 2 dollars an hour or starving on the streets you may have economic freedom, but you aren’t free. This is a major flaw in almost all Libertarian ideology, and what leads people like Der Trihs to call it ‘stupid and evil’. Because if you care about the poor, it is.
These are the sorts of problems with your brand of Libertarianism that are immediately obvious, even to the layman. You get called crazy because you are ideologically blinded to such nuances.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2009/03/27/deficits Jrod is digging in the wrong place. The deficits are a Repub creation. They proudly announce that “deficits don’t matter” and govern accordingly. They loot the treasury until they get voted out. That is when fiscal responsibility suddenly becomes a calling. Reagan, Bush the Geezer and Bush the spoiled brat all governed like the treasury was a piggy bank to be looted and doled out to the wealthy. Tax cuts to the wealthy are hard to justify in mathematical terms. It requires an air that the rich are special, chosen by god, and should gather up as many resources and as much power as possible. They don’t really hide it.
The Dems are far more reasonable in fiscal terms. But the repubs scream about “tax and spend dems” so much, that the majority begins to believe it. The evidence is contrary.
When Wall Street Rules, We Get Wall Street Rules | HuffPost Impact Jrod has some vague concepts about what went wrong. The fact is the wealthy got in charge. They bent the system to enrich themselves at every opportunity. The wealth of America did not disappear. It just slid up the ladder to the richest 2 percent. The people who need the money the least keep getting more. As our jobs go away, the people moving them offshore get richer and richer. They would not do it for free.
Our economy is fundamentally flawed by it’s grab of short term profits. We decry a planned economy as foreign and unAmerican. Yet we have eroded our manufacturing for short term profits. It is a weakening of America for quick money. Exec salaries and bonuses are determined yearly. The reward can set one up for life. There is no incentive to put a business on a long term footing. Investing a lot is R &D and product improvement would result in a lower profit for a short time. Therefore less bonuses for the execs. So they ship everything they can offshore.
Attention, jrodefeld, would you please respond to this post?
You have said that “Gold maintains its value for thousands of years”. You’ve made this same basic claim many itmes in this thread and more times in your earlier threads. Yet every time you make it, I bring up the same objeciton, and you’re not willing to answer that objection.
In fact, if you go pack to post 168 of this thread, you will see that I posted a list of 5 objections to your main line of argument. I note, and like others I respect, that you’ve answered so many posts in this thread. Yet I also note without surprise that for some reason you skipped over post 168 without any response. In fact, in post 168 I predicted that you would not respond to it. My prediction was correct. Can Ron Paul or Ludwig von Mises make predictions with that kind of accuracy?
Now, to make things simple for you, I will repost what I wrote in 168, which as I said was merely a clone of what I wrote in your earlier threads. This will thus be your third chance to answer these arguments.
**Real Criticism of jrodefeld’s argument #1:**You say that “I think most of us sense that this country is not the great country it used to be. We don’t have the same type of prosperity.”
I agree with that statement. We don’t have the same type of prosperity that we used to have. We have much more prosperity than we used to have. Even after the recent economic troubles, we are still vastly wealthier than we were in the era of the gold standard. It really doesn’t matter what measure we use: GDP, personal income, home ownership, education level, etc… It all doesn’t matter whether we adjust for inflation or not. The fact remains the same. The idea that we have less prosperity than we used to is absurd, when any decent source will confirm that we have more.
**Real Criticism of jrodefeld’s argument #2:**You say “the early stages of hyperinflation are here.”
The early stages of hyperinflation are not here, nor even the early stages of ordinary inflation. The current rate of inflation is roughly three tenths of a percent. Do you hear me? I said THREE TENTHS OF A PERCENT. That means that inflation is not occurring. To warn about hyperinflation is absurd. We’re currently at high risk for almost any economic problem except inflation. The biggest fear right now among sensible people is deflation, which is the opposite of inflation. Home prices have gone down about 30% in the past three years, not up. To say that hyperinflation is occurring is like telling Pakistanis that their river levels are too low.
Ah, but now I hear you saying that hyperinflation will occur in the future. Will it really? When I walk past a bank, I see 5-year and 10-year CDs and bonds going for interest rates around 2-3%, even lower than the rates from a few months ago. If high inflation was actually around the corner, why is the market not predicting it?
Real Criticism of jrodefeld’s argument #3: You say “gold holds it value well over time.”
Gold is uniquely bad at holding its value over long periods of time. For example, in 1981 gold prices rose over $800 per ounce. By 1998 they were down to almost $200 per ounce. Gold does not hold it’s value over time.
Real Criticism of jrodefeld’s argument #4: You say “Monopolies in a free market are traditionally very rare and almost never occur.”
This is completely untrue. Are you familiar with Standard Oil? How about the Northern Securities Company? How about the Beef Trust, the Sugar Trust, and the monopolies that controlled over a hundred American industries in the early 20th century? Clearly monopolies occur extremely often in free market economies. They are rare only in well-regulated economies.
Real Criticism of jrodefeld’s argument #5You say “As I have shown in this post, the Progressive Utopias promised by your idols FDR and Lyndon Johnson are disappearing”.
You haven’t shown any such thing. Every significant agency and economic reform enacted by FDR or LBJ is still here. Every one. Not one exception. Your statement is merely inane.
Once again, I await your responses.