Socialized Medicine

[Unaware]

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:

hmmmmm… you’re not Orion. Should I bite? Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Two questions,

1. Why did you only (try to) answer one of questions?
2. Why, do you think, the problem is so great in Russia and not so much in China or Viet Nam?

The first question was a question to Orion’s personal perspective. The second question dealt with facts. If you want to know my personal opinion I can certainly give that to you.

I am not intimately familiar with Russian culture so I can not explain to you why it is so, I can only tell you that it is so. Take for example the Russian government seizing the Shell’s oil fields after shell invested all that money in the project. That doesn’t exactly inspire more investment in the country.

The issue is obviously more complex than a single answer, but this is a large contributing factor.

The collapse of the government probably had a good deal to do with it too.

Fair enough, you didn’t see the point I was getting at. A lot of people argue that it was government involvement specifically that allowed for the huge GDP growth rates in Viet Nam and China, and it was Russia moving “too quickly” to capitalism (without the necessary institutions in place) that caused a lot of the pain.

In short, I was calling into question the libertarian belief that less government=better government in policy. (I still think the theory is fine overall.)

I got the point. My explanation is you are comparing apples to oranges. Russia has a host of other problems that china doesn’t have, namely the collapse of the governmemt and the subsequent rise of a corrupt regime.

Could you explain what you mean more here? China had a new regime in '79 (late '78), Viet Nam in, what, '86. Before I respond, What do you think the difference?

Property rights are integral to succesful capitalism.

While I agree with this theoretically, I’m sure you’re aware that western-style property rights simply don’t exist in China or Viet Nam (not without prefacing with “defacto” or “dejure” anyway). And yet these are the two greatest examples of economic development in the last, what 20 years. In short, I don’t understand why you wrote that. Please, explain.

I would argue china is profiting inspite of government interference, not because of it Its important to remember the chinese are pretty lax on labor law and pollution.

This goes against the historical record however. The Asian tigers, Botswana I believe, even Indonesia when they were growing, all had strong government “interference.” Those counties where the government tried stepping out of the way simply didn’t do as well. You might be able to find an example, but in large, a strong government has been very important for economic growth in developing countries.

To your point about labor and pollution, this is true throughout the developing world. Yet the type of economic development we’re looking at does not. [/quote]

I’m going to have to claim ignorance here. I’m not familiar enough with Russia and China’s intricacies to comment further.

[pittbulll]

[quote]orion wrote:

pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�??�??�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

That is a serious anti-capitalist fallacy that is utterly ridiculous.

If you think about it, it would actually mean that if you work and create wealth you would at the same time impoverish your neighbor.

You think capitalism is a zero sum game which it is not.

http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Zero-Sum.html

In one form or another, a zero-sum equation is probably the most common systematic argument against a really free market of voluntary exchange. The essential basis of this argument, whatever its particular focus, is a ‘zero-sum game’ of wealth, in which everyone cuts pieces of a ‘wealth pie,’ if you will, which can only be sliced so many ways and is only so large. According to this, any addition to the amount of wealth must have been balanced by its removal from somewhere else. The additions and subtractions add up to consistent amount. Wealth may not be created, only redistributed, the gain and loss adding up to zero.

If one believes this, it is perfectly understandable to object to anyone being richer than someone else (since they have necessarily appropriated more than their ‘fair share’), or to think the wealthier western world has to be exploiting the rest of the world since it has a greater piece of the pie, or that profit is unfair because it must come at the expense of someone else even in a voluntary exchange, or to believe in the use of force to ‘redress the balance.’ These things follow from the zero-sum game of wealth if it is accurate. However, the worst of this phenomenon of belief may be that in some cases, these conclusions themselves are desired, and the zero-sum economics have been discovered as a justification. I believe that to have been the case with many communist economists such as Marx, who really wanted to be justified to hate capitalists, since they already did. Before discussing any specifics, it is worth noting initially that this claim is characteristic of pessimism, and while dealing with it, it is wise to keep in mind that the proclamation of this kind of limit may have less to do with a realistic perception of the world than a pessimistic desire for such a limit to exist.[/quote]

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?

[pittbulll]

[quote]The Mage wrote:
pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

I own a snandwich shop, my neighbor owns a bread shop, my other neighbor owns a meat shop. I sell 10 sandwiches @ $5 apiece, making me $50. (Hey, I am now the richest man in the country.)

I now need more supplies, so I buy $20 worth of bread from one neighbor, and $20 worth of meat from the other neighbor. They each get hungry, and each spend $15 of their profit on my sandwiches, making me another $30.

Wait a second, that means I made $80, and my neighbors each made $40. That means somehow only $50 turned into everyone making $120.

Ok, your analogy is highly flawed for multiple reasons. The first is that money is not static, as I just showed. Like blood, it flows through the economy, being used multiple times.

Second is the whole idea that there is any limit to money. My little story is actually flawed simply because because the bread and meat are forms of money. Not just those little pieces of paper. The bread and the meat are forms of money too. So are the plates and napkins.

Too many people think that money is a real thing, but it is not, and that is its strength and its weakness. And because it is not real, it can be created, and is all the time.

Every time a farmer plants a seed, it is like planting a penny, and up comes a dollar out of the ground.

If you loan a person money, say $50, you no longer have the $50, but you have now created a debt instrument worth $50, while the other person has $50 to spend, and eventually pay back.

This means that even with only $100 in cash in circulation, people can still be making thousands. And that is proven by the the fact that the Federal Reserve of New York states the total amount of printed currency in circulation is ~$829 billion. But so far, America’s GDP for the year is over $8.5 Trillion. (Estimate according to http://www.usdebtclock.org/ )

Another way to think of money, $5 worth of scrap steel can make $80 worth of paper clips. (If my estimates are right, based on the June price of scrap steel, and the Staples price on 1000 paper clips.)[/quote]

In your equation your customer did not buy the bread from his usual baker or the meat from his usual butcher nor did spend the time to make the sandwich. As far as the Money he lost it and you gained it.

[orion]

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:

pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�??�??�??�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

That is a serious anti-capitalist fallacy that is utterly ridiculous.

If you think about it, it would actually mean that if you work and create wealth you would at the same time impoverish your neighbor.

You think capitalism is a zero sum game which it is not.

http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Zero-Sum.html

In one form or another, a zero-sum equation is probably the most common systematic argument against a really free market of voluntary exchange. The essential basis of this argument, whatever its particular focus, is a ‘zero-sum game’ of wealth, in which everyone cuts pieces of a ‘wealth pie,’ if you will, which can only be sliced so many ways and is only so large. According to this, any addition to the amount of wealth must have been balanced by its removal from somewhere else. The additions and subtractions add up to consistent amount. Wealth may not be created, only redistributed, the gain and loss adding up to zero.

If one believes this, it is perfectly understandable to object to anyone being richer than someone else (since they have necessarily appropriated more than their ‘fair share’), or to think the wealthier western world has to be exploiting the rest of the world since it has a greater piece of the pie, or that profit is unfair because it must come at the expense of someone else even in a voluntary exchange, or to believe in the use of force to ‘redress the balance.’ These things follow from the zero-sum game of wealth if it is accurate. However, the worst of this phenomenon of belief may be that in some cases, these conclusions themselves are desired, and the zero-sum economics have been discovered as a justification. I believe that to have been the case with many communist economists such as Marx, who really wanted to be justified to hate capitalists, since they already did. Before discussing any specifics, it is worth noting initially that this claim is characteristic of pessimism, and while dealing with it, it is wise to keep in mind that the proclamation of this kind of limit may have less to do with a realistic perception of the world than a pessimistic desire for such a limit to exist.

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?[/quote]

What?

Do you even know what the current US grade deficit means?

Half starving Asians send you real tangible goods for completely worthless IOUs!

Granted, the US does not create as much wealth as it consumes but where is the problem?

[pittbulll]

[quote]orion wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:

pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�??�??�??�??�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

That is a serious anti-capitalist fallacy that is utterly ridiculous.

If you think about it, it would actually mean that if you work and create wealth you would at the same time impoverish your neighbor.

You think capitalism is a zero sum game which it is not.

http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Zero-Sum.html

In one form or another, a zero-sum equation is probably the most common systematic argument against a really free market of voluntary exchange. The essential basis of this argument, whatever its particular focus, is a ‘zero-sum game’ of wealth, in which everyone cuts pieces of a ‘wealth pie,’ if you will, which can only be sliced so many ways and is only so large. According to this, any addition to the amount of wealth must have been balanced by its removal from somewhere else. The additions and subtractions add up to consistent amount. Wealth may not be created, only redistributed, the gain and loss adding up to zero.

If one believes this, it is perfectly understandable to object to anyone being richer than someone else (since they have necessarily appropriated more than their ‘fair share’), or to think the wealthier western world has to be exploiting the rest of the world since it has a greater piece of the pie, or that profit is unfair because it must come at the expense of someone else even in a voluntary exchange, or to believe in the use of force to ‘redress the balance.’ These things follow from the zero-sum game of wealth if it is accurate. However, the worst of this phenomenon of belief may be that in some cases, these conclusions themselves are desired, and the zero-sum economics have been discovered as a justification. I believe that to have been the case with many communist economists such as Marx, who really wanted to be justified to hate capitalists, since they already did. Before discussing any specifics, it is worth noting initially that this claim is characteristic of pessimism, and while dealing with it, it is wise to keep in mind that the proclamation of this kind of limit may have less to do with a realistic perception of the world than a pessimistic desire for such a limit to exist.

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?

What?

Do you even know what the current US grade deficit means?

Half starving Asians send you real tangible goods for completely worthless IOUs!

Granted, the US does not create as much wealth as it consumes but where is the problem?

[/quote]

The only way to expand our economy is to get more money from other economies, A trade deficit is where we export less than we import, those starving Asians are doing the supply good, but they are taking our wealth away with them, those IOUs are called dallors

[orion]

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:

pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�??�??�??�??�??�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

That is a serious anti-capitalist fallacy that is utterly ridiculous.

If you think about it, it would actually mean that if you work and create wealth you would at the same time impoverish your neighbor.

You think capitalism is a zero sum game which it is not.

http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Zero-Sum.html

In one form or another, a zero-sum equation is probably the most common systematic argument against a really free market of voluntary exchange. The essential basis of this argument, whatever its particular focus, is a ‘zero-sum game’ of wealth, in which everyone cuts pieces of a ‘wealth pie,’ if you will, which can only be sliced so many ways and is only so large. According to this, any addition to the amount of wealth must have been balanced by its removal from somewhere else. The additions and subtractions add up to consistent amount. Wealth may not be created, only redistributed, the gain and loss adding up to zero.

If one believes this, it is perfectly understandable to object to anyone being richer than someone else (since they have necessarily appropriated more than their ‘fair share’), or to think the wealthier western world has to be exploiting the rest of the world since it has a greater piece of the pie, or that profit is unfair because it must come at the expense of someone else even in a voluntary exchange, or to believe in the use of force to ‘redress the balance.’ These things follow from the zero-sum game of wealth if it is accurate. However, the worst of this phenomenon of belief may be that in some cases, these conclusions themselves are desired, and the zero-sum economics have been discovered as a justification. I believe that to have been the case with many communist economists such as Marx, who really wanted to be justified to hate capitalists, since they already did. Before discussing any specifics, it is worth noting initially that this claim is characteristic of pessimism, and while dealing with it, it is wise to keep in mind that the proclamation of this kind of limit may have less to do with a realistic perception of the world than a pessimistic desire for such a limit to exist.

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?

What?

Do you even know what the current US grade deficit means?

Half starving Asians send you real tangible goods for completely worthless IOUs!

Granted, the US does not create as much wealth as it consumes but where is the problem?

The only way to expand our economy is to get more money from other economies, A trade deficit is where we export less than we import, those starving Asians are doing the supply good, but they are taking our wealth away with them, those IOUs are called dallors[/quote]

Hey, you are only about 300 years behind in economic theory, I am just not quite sure if you are a mercantilist or even a bullionist.

Anyhow. money is basically a claim to purchasing power. Usually you acquire money by producing stuff other people want and sell it to them. Insofar supply and demand are two sides of the same coin. Your production is what you trade in for other goods.

Your dollars however are not paid to you by foreigners for goods you have produced, as you have pointed out you have a large trade deficit and pay them by printing dollars that become increasingly worthless.

If you had a currency backed by gold the system would self regulate, since you have not the dollar will collapse- So yes, those “dollars” are exactly the worthless IOUs I was taking about and the US is already defaulting on the dollar,. As you may have noticed the Fed has doubled the money supply last year alone, once that gets into the system the dollar is worth exactly one continental.

So in essence they send you goods, you send them paper.

[Headhunter]

Obama is playing the ‘Age’ card. His supporters are mostly younger. So he wants to take healthcare from the older folks and bestow it on his base.

"Sen. Joseph Liebermanâ??s criticism of the Obama health-care initiative may prove to be a pivotal turning point.

Others have focused exclusively on the Obama planâ??s impact on health care. The elderly worry about bearing the brunt of the inevitable rationing; others look with alarm at the de facto socialization of one-sixth of our economy."

DickMorris.com

[pittbulll]

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Obama is playing the ‘Age’ card. His supporters are mostly younger. So he wants to take healthcare from the older folks and bestow it on his base.

"Sen. Joseph Liebermanâ??s criticism of the Obama health-care initiative may prove to be a pivotal turning point.

Others have focused exclusively on the Obama planâ??s impact on health care. The elderly worry about bearing the brunt of the inevitable rationing; others look with alarm at the de facto socialization of one-sixth of our economy."

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/[/quote]

School teachers are part of Americaâ??s social programs. You are paid by a social program and your insurance is a social program, you are in fact a socialist

[orion]

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

In your equation your customer did not buy the bread from his usual baker or the meat from his usual butcher nor did spend the time to make the sandwich. As far as the Money he lost it and you gained it.

[/quote]

Yet again, he gets the sandwich which he wanted more than money, otherwise he would not have exchanged his money for it.

He is “richer” now than he was before.

You ascribe magic properties to a means of exchange.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]orion wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
orion wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
orion wrote:

The point was that the “poor” in the US are better off because of hundreds of years of capital accumulation.

Very true

If you interfere with that process by redistributing money capital grows slower so the “poor” of tomorrow will be far worse off than they would have been otherwise.

It’s a great theory, and mostly true. But I wonder, as a card-carrying libertarian, are there any investments that are worth taxation in your world? Universal primary education? Roads?

Also, from a libertarian perspective, why is it that China and Viet Nam are progressing so rapidly with such a heavy government hand and with such slow deregulation whereas Russia and other did so poorly with “shock therapy?”

I think that there are some investments that call for taxation but not that many because most of f.e infrastructure financing could be done with user fees which would have the advantage of no unwanted cross subsidies.

Why pay for a highway you never use?

Well, that might work for maintenance. But you’ve still not addressed how they could be built.

Elementary school, no, but just because in England before mandatory schooling 96% of all children went to school. That beats what we have now.

We are talking about subsidization for schooling (I suppose I should have left the “universal” part off). I very much doubt tht 96% of all children went to school w/o government financing…

…but even if that’s true, you know as well as I that throughout the developing world regression after regression has shown a huge rate of return for primary education. Are you honestly arguing that government has no role?

As you know, roads and primary education are somewhat “easy” cases where almost everyone agrees that government should play a role. Just one more time to make sure, Are you honestly answering that, in fact, you don’t believe that government should be collecting taxes for roads and primary schooling? Not just in the developed world but in the developing as well?

Then, what is a heavy government hand? I think a market can suffer a lot of abuse if it is at least consistent. If in the case of Russia you can be thrown into jail and lose everything you got merely because Putin says so that is far worse than some stupid rules.

(I think)This is my point exactly. Inconsistency increases risk and slow, incremental movement towards capitalistic principles is by far better than a rapid movement. In short, government has a huge role to play, in practice.

All in all I would be happy if government just got out of the redistribution business. Then they would be somewhere around 10% GDP and could probably finance themselves through indirect taxes.

- YouTube

[i]Imagine there’s no taxes. It’s easy if you try. No redistribution below us. Above us only 10% growth rates. Imagine all the people, living for today…

Imagine there’s no country, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people, living life in peace.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will be as one. …[/i]

10% growth rates, huh? That sounds like reality in the developed world.

I think they should have a bidding who wants to build a road as specified in the details. Let us see who shows up to build it. [/quote]

Well then, can we at least collect a little tax money for those who set up the bidding?

[quote]And yes, even primary education should be private. If there is one thing that we know it is that parents will send their kids to school if they can, and if a whole family saves to send a kid to school that kid automatically gets that eduction is important.
[/quote]

We were talking about subsidization, were we not? If “we know…that parents will send their kids to school if they can” isn’t that part of the rationale for subsidization?

Are you sure you’re so against taxes? Sounds more like you have a different vision for how taxes should be spent.

[Gambit_Lost]

[quote]Unaware wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:

hmmmmm… you’re not Orion. Should I bite? Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Two questions,

1. Why did you only (try to) answer one of questions?
2. Why, do you think, the problem is so great in Russia and not so much in China or Viet Nam?

The first question was a question to Orion’s personal perspective. The second question dealt with facts. If you want to know my personal opinion I can certainly give that to you.

I am not intimately familiar with Russian culture so I can not explain to you why it is so, I can only tell you that it is so. Take for example the Russian government seizing the Shell’s oil fields after shell invested all that money in the project. That doesn’t exactly inspire more investment in the country.

The issue is obviously more complex than a single answer, but this is a large contributing factor.

The collapse of the government probably had a good deal to do with it too.

Fair enough, you didn’t see the point I was getting at. A lot of people argue that it was government involvement specifically that allowed for the huge GDP growth rates in Viet Nam and China, and it was Russia moving “too quickly” to capitalism (without the necessary institutions in place) that caused a lot of the pain.

In short, I was calling into question the libertarian belief that less government=better government in policy. (I still think the theory is fine overall.)

I got the point. My explanation is you are comparing apples to oranges. Russia has a host of other problems that china doesn’t have, namely the collapse of the governmemt and the subsequent rise of a corrupt regime.

Could you explain what you mean more here? China had a new regime in '79 (late '78), Viet Nam in, what, '86. Before I respond, What do you think the difference?

Property rights are integral to succesful capitalism.

While I agree with this theoretically, I’m sure you’re aware that western-style property rights simply don’t exist in China or Viet Nam (not without prefacing with “defacto” or “dejure” anyway). And yet these are the two greatest examples of economic development in the last, what 20 years. In short, I don’t understand why you wrote that. Please, explain.

I would argue china is profiting inspite of government interference, not because of it Its important to remember the chinese are pretty lax on labor law and pollution.

This goes against the historical record however. The Asian tigers, Botswana I believe, even Indonesia when they were growing, all had strong government “interference.” Those counties where the government tried stepping out of the way simply didn’t do as well. You might be able to find an example, but in large, a strong government has been very important for economic growth in developing countries.

To your point about labor and pollution, this is true throughout the developing world. Yet the type of economic development we’re looking at does not.

I’m going to have to claim ignorance here. I’m not familiar enough with Russia and China’s intricacies to comment further.[/quote]

That’s cool. My only real point is one shouldn’t jump on the “all government is bad” bandwagon that a lot of utopians and libertarians are on. A strong, limited government is essential for economic growth.

[Unaware]

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Unaware wrote:

hmmmmm… you’re not Orion. Should I bite? Okay, I’ll give it a shot. Two questions,

1. Why did you only (try to) answer one of questions?
2. Why, do you think, the problem is so great in Russia and not so much in China or Viet Nam?

The first question was a question to Orion’s personal perspective. The second question dealt with facts. If you want to know my personal opinion I can certainly give that to you.

I am not intimately familiar with Russian culture so I can not explain to you why it is so, I can only tell you that it is so. Take for example the Russian government seizing the Shell’s oil fields after shell invested all that money in the project. That doesn’t exactly inspire more investment in the country.

The issue is obviously more complex than a single answer, but this is a large contributing factor.

The collapse of the government probably had a good deal to do with it too.

Fair enough, you didn’t see the point I was getting at. A lot of people argue that it was government involvement specifically that allowed for the huge GDP growth rates in Viet Nam and China, and it was Russia moving “too quickly” to capitalism (without the necessary institutions in place) that caused a lot of the pain.

In short, I was calling into question the libertarian belief that less government=better government in policy. (I still think the theory is fine overall.)

I got the point. My explanation is you are comparing apples to oranges. Russia has a host of other problems that china doesn’t have, namely the collapse of the governmemt and the subsequent rise of a corrupt regime.

Could you explain what you mean more here? China had a new regime in '79 (late '78), Viet Nam in, what, '86. Before I respond, What do you think the difference?

Property rights are integral to succesful capitalism.

While I agree with this theoretically, I’m sure you’re aware that western-style property rights simply don’t exist in China or Viet Nam (not without prefacing with “defacto” or “dejure” anyway). And yet these are the two greatest examples of economic development in the last, what 20 years. In short, I don’t understand why you wrote that. Please, explain.

I would argue china is profiting inspite of government interference, not because of it Its important to remember the chinese are pretty lax on labor law and pollution.

This goes against the historical record however. The Asian tigers, Botswana I believe, even Indonesia when they were growing, all had strong government “interference.” Those counties where the government tried stepping out of the way simply didn’t do as well. You might be able to find an example, but in large, a strong government has been very important for economic growth in developing countries.

To your point about labor and pollution, this is true throughout the developing world. Yet the type of economic development we’re looking at does not.

I’m going to have to claim ignorance here. I’m not familiar enough with Russia and China’s intricacies to comment further.

That’s cool. My only real point is one shouldn’t jump on the “all government is bad” bandwagon that a lot of utopians and libertarians are on. A strong, limited government is essential for economic growth. [/quote]

I would be happy with a strong limited government, asumming none of the past few administrations fit that description. I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of people think Obama’s or Bush’s administration fits the bill of ‘limited government’.

[The_Mage]

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?[/quote]

Incorrect. Wealth is constantly being created and destroyed all the time. You need to get over this idea that money is static, and fixed. It is not.

Money is not real, a construct of you will. It is only a medium of exchange, and item to facilitate the action of barter.

As such it can be created. Lets say you took a house, paid a contractor $5,000 to improve it, and as a result the value of the house increases by $10,000. Where did that extra $5,000 come from? Wealth was created.

This is exactly how an economy works, you are literally creating money.

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
In your equation your customer did not buy the bread from his usual baker or the meat from his usual butcher nor did spend the time to make the sandwich. As far as the Money he lost it and you gained it.[/quote]

And your not getting what I am saying. It doesn’t matter, because he wanted the sandwich, and decided not to make it himself, his choice. But the money is coming back to him when I want something from him, or somebody else wants something else from him.

Regardless you are still not seeing how $100 resulted in more then $100 in economic exchange. You also don’t get the idea that regardless of there only being $100 in this theoretical world, there is still an unlimited supply of products worth an unlimited amount of money.

Just because there is only $100 in this world doesn’t mean I can’t own $1,000,000 worth of gold.

Which brings up another thing you obviously do not understand. The wealthy generally do not hold cash. They hold assets. We call them Multi-Millionaires, or Billionaires, but the chances of even one of them having even $50,000 cash is quite minuscule.

[orion]

[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
orion wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
orion wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
orion wrote:

The point was that the “poor” in the US are better off because of hundreds of years of capital accumulation.

Very true

If you interfere with that process by redistributing money capital grows slower so the “poor” of tomorrow will be far worse off than they would have been otherwise.

It’s a great theory, and mostly true. But I wonder, as a card-carrying libertarian, are there any investments that are worth taxation in your world? Universal primary education? Roads?

Also, from a libertarian perspective, why is it that China and Viet Nam are progressing so rapidly with such a heavy government hand and with such slow deregulation whereas Russia and other did so poorly with “shock therapy?”

I think that there are some investments that call for taxation but not that many because most of f.e infrastructure financing could be done with user fees which would have the advantage of no unwanted cross subsidies.

Why pay for a highway you never use?

Well, that might work for maintenance. But you’ve still not addressed how they could be built.

Elementary school, no, but just because in England before mandatory schooling 96% of all children went to school. That beats what we have now.

We are talking about subsidization for schooling (I suppose I should have left the “universal” part off). I very much doubt tht 96% of all children went to school w/o government financing…

…but even if that’s true, you know as well as I that throughout the developing world regression after regression has shown a huge rate of return for primary education. Are you honestly arguing that government has no role?

As you know, roads and primary education are somewhat “easy” cases where almost everyone agrees that government should play a role. Just one more time to make sure, Are you honestly answering that, in fact, you don’t believe that government should be collecting taxes for roads and primary schooling? Not just in the developed world but in the developing as well?

Then, what is a heavy government hand? I think a market can suffer a lot of abuse if it is at least consistent. If in the case of Russia you can be thrown into jail and lose everything you got merely because Putin says so that is far worse than some stupid rules.

(I think)This is my point exactly. Inconsistency increases risk and slow, incremental movement towards capitalistic principles is by far better than a rapid movement. In short, government has a huge role to play, in practice.

All in all I would be happy if government just got out of the redistribution business. Then they would be somewhere around 10% GDP and could probably finance themselves through indirect taxes.

- YouTube

[i]Imagine there’s no taxes. It’s easy if you try. No redistribution below us. Above us only 10% growth rates. Imagine all the people, living for today…

Imagine there’s no country, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people, living life in peace.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will be as one. …[/i]

10% growth rates, huh? That sounds like reality in the developed world.

I think they should have a bidding who wants to build a road as specified in the details. Let us see who shows up to build it.

Well then, can we at least collect a little tax money for those who set up the bidding?

And yes, even primary education should be private. If there is one thing that we know it is that parents will send their kids to school if they can, and if a whole family saves to send a kid to school that kid automatically gets that eduction is important.

We were talking about subsidization, were we not? If “we know…that parents will send their kids to school if they can” isn’t that part of the rationale for subsidization?

Are you sure you’re so against taxes? Sounds more like you have a different vision for how taxes should be spent. [/quote]

No.

I am for INDIRECT taxation to finance the police, military and courts and for a system of user fees to finance the rest that absolutely positively had to be supervised or planned by the government.

It is not taxes or no taxes, it is what kind of taxes for what purpose.

A government is a necessary evil, an abomination we must live with.

I am by no means willing to use the government for any other purpose than keeping people from initiating violence against others, prevent and punish fraud and some other things that must be decided collectively, like pollution.

[orion]

[quote]The Mage wrote:

This is exactly how an economy works, you are literally creating money.

[/quote]

Only the Fed does that. You are creating value.

Value and money is not the same and trust me that by treating it as the same at lot of economists have made a lot of flawed arguments.

[orion]

[quote]The Mage wrote:

Which brings up another thing you obviously do not understand. The wealthy generally do not hold cash. They hold assets. We call them Multi-Millionaires, or Billionaires, but the chances of even one of them having even $50,000 cash is quite minuscule.
[/quote]

I guarantee you that in this day and age almost every one of them has 50000$ somewhere.

If you bribe early and often you can prevent a lot of damage and sometimes a paper trail just will not do.

Plus there are adult hobbies that are better paid for in cash.

Ask Spitzer for details.

[pittbulll]

[quote]orion wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
orion wrote:

pittbulll wrote:

I like that ( BULL FUCKING SHIT:)I see life as a microcosm; let�??�??�??�??�??�??�?�¢??s reduce America to 100 people and a total of $100. One person makes 50 dollars, 4 people make 10 dollars, 50 people 10cents, 40 people make a nickel, 3 make a penny and 1 makes nothing. The only way for some one to make more money is for some one to make less. I know it does not add up to a hundred dollars but it states my point.

That is a serious anti-capitalist fallacy that is utterly ridiculous.

If you think about it, it would actually mean that if you work and create wealth you would at the same time impoverish your neighbor.

You think capitalism is a zero sum game which it is not.

http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Zero-Sum.html

In one form or another, a zero-sum equation is probably the most common systematic argument against a really free market of voluntary exchange. The essential basis of this argument, whatever its particular focus, is a ‘zero-sum game’ of wealth, in which everyone cuts pieces of a ‘wealth pie,’ if you will, which can only be sliced so many ways and is only so large. According to this, any addition to the amount of wealth must have been balanced by its removal from somewhere else. The additions and subtractions add up to consistent amount. Wealth may not be created, only redistributed, the gain and loss adding up to zero.

If one believes this, it is perfectly understandable to object to anyone being richer than someone else (since they have necessarily appropriated more than their ‘fair share’), or to think the wealthier western world has to be exploiting the rest of the world since it has a greater piece of the pie, or that profit is unfair because it must come at the expense of someone else even in a voluntary exchange, or to believe in the use of force to ‘redress the balance.’ These things follow from the zero-sum game of wealth if it is accurate. However, the worst of this phenomenon of belief may be that in some cases, these conclusions themselves are desired, and the zero-sum economics have been discovered as a justification. I believe that to have been the case with many communist economists such as Marx, who really wanted to be justified to hate capitalists, since they already did. Before discussing any specifics, it is worth noting initially that this claim is characteristic of pessimism, and while dealing with it, it is wise to keep in mind that the proclamation of this kind of limit may have less to do with a realistic perception of the world than a pessimistic desire for such a limit to exist.

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?

What?

Do you even know what the current US grade deficit means?

Half starving Asians send you real tangible goods for completely worthless IOUs!

Granted, the US does not create as much wealth as it consumes but where is the problem?

The only way to expand our economy is to get more money from other economies, A trade deficit is where we export less than we import, those starving Asians are doing the supply good, but they are taking our wealth away with them, those IOUs are called dallors

Hey, you are only about 300 years behind in economic theory, I am just not quite sure if you are a mercantilist or even a bullionist.

Anyhow. money is basically a claim to purchasing power. Usually you acquire money by producing stuff other people want and sell it to them. Insofar supply and demand are two sides of the same coin. Your production is what you trade in for other goods.

Your dollars however are not paid to you by foreigners for goods you have produced, as you have pointed out you have a large trade deficit and pay them by printing dollars that become increasingly worthless.

If you had a currency backed by gold the system would self regulate, since you have not the dollar will collapse- So yes, those “dollars” are exactly the worthless IOUs I was taking about and the US is already defaulting on the dollar,. As you may have noticed the Fed has doubled the money supply last year alone, once that gets into the system the dollar is worth exactly one continental.

So in essence they send you goods, you send them paper.

[/quote]

Mercantilism

From the definition I would say I favor some of the characteristics but not the whole thing. I do feel unless we have greater exports than we have imports, all we are doing is exchanging money with each other. If there is a theory that you think better explains the economy please post it

Bullionism

Definatly not a bullionist

[pittbulll]

[quote]The Mage wrote:
pittbulll wrote:

In our system , the only way to create wealth is to have a trade surplus , when was the last time that happened ?

Incorrect. Wealth is constantly being created and destroyed all the time. You need to get over this idea that money is static, and fixed. It is not.

Money is not real, a construct of you will. It is only a medium of exchange, and item to facilitate the action of barter.

As such it can be created. Lets say you took a house, paid a contractor $5,000 to improve it, and as a result the value of the house increases by $10,000. Where did that extra $5,000 come from? Wealth was created.

This is exactly how an economy works, you are literally creating money.

pittbulll wrote:
In your equation your customer did not buy the bread from his usual baker or the meat from his usual butcher nor did spend the time to make the sandwich. As far as the Money he lost it and you gained it.

And your not getting what I am saying. It doesn’t matter, because he wanted the sandwich, and decided not to make it himself, his choice. But the money is coming back to him when I want something from him, or somebody else wants something else from him.

Regardless you are still not seeing how $100 resulted in more then $100 in economic exchange. You also don’t get the idea that regardless of there only being $100 in this theoretical world, there is still an unlimited supply of products worth an unlimited amount of money.

Just because there is only $100 in this world doesn’t mean I can’t own $1,000,000 worth of gold.

Which brings up another thing you obviously do not understand. The wealthy generally do not hold cash. They hold assets. We call them Multi-Millionaires, or Billionaires, but the chances of even one of them having even $50,000 cash is quite minuscule.
[/quote]

I would agree with you that some wealth can be created, but the majority of wealth is exchanged. When you paid the contractor $5000 dollars he made the gain for his labor and you took the loss. In all honesty you could not claim the value in your house went up $10,000 unless you sold it and you could not claim that the reason you got $10,000 of your price because of your construction project.

I know Wall Street and the Banks make money through accounting procedures and pushing paper. I personally believe it is weakening our economic structure.

I understand people hold assets and not cash as a rule. But if you want to cash out an asset, you trade your asset for cash and some one takes your asset. If people liquidate their assets all at the same time, they will have to take less cash because cash will be in a shortage. Supply and demand

[The_Mage]

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I would agree with you that some wealth can be created, but the majority of wealth is exchanged.[/quote]

Wrong, all wealth is created, only the dollars are exchanged. Remember it is a medium of exchange. An in between step for barter.[quote]

When you paid the contractor $5000 dollars he made the gain for his labor and you took the loss.[/quote]

You really have not concept of this do you? There is no loss, none. The desire was for the upgrade to the house, and as long as that was more important to me then the $5,000, then it not a loss, because I received something I desired in return. If the $5,000 was more important to me, then it is only foolish of me to spend the $5,000.[quote]

In all honesty you could not claim the value in your house went up $10,000 unless you sold it and you could not claim that the reason you got $10,000 of your price because of your construction project. [/quote]

Then you could not claim that Bill Gates is a Billionaire, because he has not sold his stock. The same for Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, and all the other Billionaires out there.[quote]

I know Wall Street and the Banks make money through accounting procedures and pushing paper. I personally believe it is weakening our economic structure.[/quote]

Sorry, I don’t understand what you are saying here. If you are talking about debt, for the most part, yes that is bad. Stocks? You are buying a piece of something that actually exists, a portion of a business that makes money for you. (If it is a well run business that is.)[quote]

I understand people hold assets and not cash as a rule. But if you want to cash out an asset, you trade your asset for cash and some one takes your asset. If people liquidate their assets all at the same time, they will have to take less cash because cash will be in a shortage. Supply and demand
[/quote]

Yes, if everyone wants to sell their asset at the same time, the price of the asset will decrease due to supply and demand, but not because of lack of cash, because fewer people want that asset at that time. (Otherwise the dollar would have ballooned in value when the market crashed.)

And that is when Warren Buffet steps in and buys up stock, when everyone else is being foolish. Most famous investing quote in the world, “Buy low, sell high!” and nobody follows it. Before the Real-Estate market dropped, I was telling people on this forum that it wasn’t a great time to buy a house, and to wait for the “bubble” to burst.

I won a bet with lixy about the oil being in a bubble. (He never did eat his underwear.) And the current bubble? Gold. But I don’t see it dropping until people are no longer worried about the economy, and inflation. (At least this administration.)

[The_Mage]

[quote]orion wrote:

Only the Fed does that. You are creating value.

Value and money is not the same and trust me that by treating it as the same at lot of economists have made a lot of flawed arguments.
[/quote]

Well I wasn’t worried about being that technical. Yes it really isn’t money, but for all intents and purposes, it kind of is. Sure value would be a proper term, but it does not have the psychological impact that the word money does.