Once the government uses force (real or implied) without threat or in defense of property rights, but to achieve the ends of special interests, it is an unethical government.

Sounds like democracy to me.

I feel sorry for them too. They always seem so upset.

I notice you do this a lot. Re-write forum history, hollowly claim "every indicator" supports your premise, and excuse yourself from actually having to respond further. What a strategy.

I didn't misread or "make up" anything in your "zOMG! algae can be oil!" thread. You just couldn't find a way to spin it further beyond "all innovation requires time," or words to that effect.

So then link a few. And then I'll link a few more that indicate quite the opposite (especially wages). Then, like before, you can just ignore what doesn't fit your cornucopian agenda, and pretend you "don't have to respond further." ... Either way, the "by every measure" declaration is beyond ridiculous.

Did you sleepwalk through the drastic measures taken by world financial entities and sovereign governments the past 6-7 years? "By every measure," the global economy was on the brink. Why do you think that is? Dumb, over-extended home buyers? Or something far deeper?

I know you've taken a beating in this thread, but you seem to be confused about where we disagree. Either that, or you can't keep track of who's who here. I don't remember saying the debt ceiling shouldn't be raised, at least as a short-term fix. We're in a rather desperate situation we've gotten ourselves into due to economic policies that people just like you continue to advocate.

I'm pretty sure my contribution rested on the FACT that the global economy is seizing up because of high energy prices. Most all the other factors you can point to are mere symptoms of that core condition. Amazingly, people like you think that increasingly more expensive forms of energy just might be the solution to everything, "given enough time."

LOL... where the basic laws of thermodynamics are an "invention." Got it.

You should know, given your "by every measure" mantra...

And what in God's name do you think those wars and economic meltdowns were all about? When you get around to being honest about that question, you'll be a lot closer to realizing that your entire argument here is cart-before-horse.

No, they were caused by spiking oil prices and corrected global asset value as a result of that uncertainty. Why do you think the Fed funds rate spikes nearly every time there's an oil price spike?

Wow. No. Not sure where you arrived at that one.

LOL... yeah, except wages vs. cost-of-living, job growth, divorce rates (largely financial), violent crime (largely financial), work hours, declining savings, and on and on and on.

"By every measure" you live in a bubble.

Sorta like crawling in a marathon is technically "moving forward."

How much public funding is going towards algae to energy research again?

Percent of income going towards food and housing. Percent of homes with high definition televisions. Percent of homes with Internet access. Average educational attainment. Productivity per hour worked. Average longevity. Household savings rates. Mean number of hours spent in leisure activities. Percentage of homeless people.

[Quote[Did you sleepwalk through the drastic measures taken by world financial entities and sovereign governments the past 6-7 years? "By every measure," the global economy was on the brink. Why do you think that is? Dumb, over-extended home buyers? Or something far deeper?[/quote]

It was a vast conspiracy against you.

It was financial deregulation and the normal boom-bust cycle that has been happening approximately as far back as history is available. Nothing new.

We were in a desperate situation, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the US federal deficit.

I've advocated nothing other than pointing out that libertarianism is a silly ideology that will never (and has never) caught on and that Austrian economics is incorrect.

High energy prices did not cause the economic crisis. If they had the economic crisis would have ended when crude oil got down to $40/barrel.

Slow increases in production don't cause crises. They cause a limit to growth acceleration.

My investments in wind and solar stocks did pretty well last year. (This forum is also not the politics forum - I am still all for token amounts of money spent on basic research)

Originally Posted by BrianTheMick2
There are tons of economic indicators. Average Joe is better off today than in the 1950s by every measure except for obesity rates.

Seeing as we are becoming a more technology advanced society, it seems inevitable to me that living standards would increase. That doesn't mean that the average joe isn't getting screwed over by the government and Wall Street. Things should be so much better for the average joe in this day and age.

Can one of the "the inflation rate that the government provides us is accurate" people tell me why this article and other like it are wrong or why we should believe the information the government provides us?

The economy is growing if we believe what we are told, but the past gives us reasons to be cynical.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspe...ing-consumers/

Ignoring the rest because it was largely answered in my other post.

Cost of living has gone up because quality of living has gone through the roof. You could live like a 1950s person for nearly nothing today.

Job growth was an historically unprecedented bubble. It is growing again.

Divorce is just us becoming less religious and women becoming less economically reliant on men (something any decent libertarian should want). Work hours being down is a good thing. Savings is up considerably. Violent crime is down.

TBH, I don't think they charge based on risk either...BUT---

They do, to the best of my recollection, enforce a higher reserve ratio requirement on those deposits that are deemed more risky. I could dig it up, but I think it's in Basel II (or III?). So in effect, the banks are being charged more, just in the form of not allowing as much to be lent out. That reduces the spread in the risk of the bank failing.

Also (to MBN), the FDIC/Fed moves in when the bank approaches a net worth of zero. Not at the point when there are no net assets, or the bank can't pay it's creditors or depositors or anything else like that. Done correctly (and they've had a fair amount of practice) the FDIC can move in at the appropriate time, liquidate parts of the bank, find another bank willing to take on deposits, and the like. In a weekend, the "problem" can be fixed (and yes, they usually do that over a weekend).

In other words, caught early enough, very little in terms of funds (compared with the total deposits) needs to be supplied.

The bigger question in this thread is even if the doomsday scenario comes true, will you be able to protect yourself or hopefully capitalize on it?

Given the many different ways things can go down, and the complexities of trying to get the timing right, I would argue "no".

Someone send this thread to Politics.

In itself that's a perfectly sensible approach but from the sound of it that fits the cyclical point about the regulation being at its best after the crash. It is also a very dangerous approach when its needed most as we really should have learned by now.

I'd happily bet that there risk assessment is extremely dubious even at this point in the cycle. Its only a few years ago (certainly post crash) that European banks that had just passed stress tests got into serious trouble

The Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...g-stress-tests

Thought this was the most accurate post, and illustrates why I agree with Brian.

We are upset because we people like you keep using force in an attempt to get things accomplished! AND IT NEVER WORKS.

Income inequality is at all an all-time high despite countless trillions of welfare spending. The criminal drug syndicate has taken control of entire inner city neighborhoods despite an entire police/surveillance state growing around it. Fradulent banking practices are at an all time high, with the banking sector growing wildly (despite nearly a century of strict, yet obviously nonsensical regulation)... this stuff just makes the opposite happen.

It's honestly like beating your daughter, yelling at her, kicking her when shes down, threatening her day in day out to be good to and to care about the family... obviously shes going to grow up to be a traumatized, abusive, ****ed up bitch!

This might seem a bit abstract to some, but it's really important if you want to understand the libertarian philosophy. Even if you don't agree with us, at least understand it.

So here goes:

The entire issue of libertarianism pertains to "positive" and "negative" rights.

Negative rights are essentially protection of property, of liberty and freedom etc. You should not be able to be persecuted for beliefs, or denied property rights, or hurt in any way by anyone.

Now, Government(force) enforced positive rights demand resource or effort from others without consent. Health Care, Welfare, Subsidies are strictly unethical, because just like beating your daughter into showing you affection, they force or steal actions or resources from someone against their will...

Take the instance of socialized healthcare. Not saying you are 100% for this, but it's likely you are. By saying that healthcare is a "universal right", you are saying either that:

A) doctors should be forced to work without pay (or thrown into cages for disobeying)
B) The government should violently threaten each household in the U.S. into paying for it (the option we have currently taken)

Basic logic says, you are claiming that you have a "right" to the property of others through the use of force! Not your own of course, like most people you would be too scared to actually do this yourself (and with good cause, waving a baseball bat around at the mall, demanding people pay your bills is definitely wrong) so you delegate this threatening to the government.

Take UIGEA for example. I think it's important, since this is an American poker forum. You, like many other poker players, probably feel that your ideology stands in stark contrast to this. But it is your very acceptance of the fact that people can use the threat of force to fix problems in society that causes laws like this to come into place!. Business regulation (banking included) is, at it's core, threatening peaceful free market players with forceful assault to act contrary to market demand.

I can see an argument for a single service, that being national/domestic defense of property, being a non-coercive positive right (people essentially will unanimously cede their defense to government in almost all cases) but I even feel ultimately that this should be trusted entirely to voluntary citizens as well. ESPECIALLY if the government becomes militaristic and corrupt (American currently has the largest overseas empire in history)

I hope that articulates the libertarian position in a reasonable way. We aren't maniacs, we are the most peaceful people ever, and we would never threaten the property or life of another peaceful human being for any reason. I think the burden of proof is on people like Brian to explain why he thinks one is entitled to positive rights through coercive force.

I'll be honest, before that last post you had me close to sitting on the fence about some of what was being discussed in here. After that post though, I'm 100% sure I disagree with libertarianism.

Out of curiosity, is there a country anywhere that comes close to the sort of society you propose? I plead ignorance, for all I know somewhere these people are living free and....happy?

Quite easily done: Other philosophies exist. Also, all the consequences. Even a cursory understanding of human behavior precludes the beliefs that libertarians have about how it would turn out.

In a very basic way, we find public education, health and welfare, regulation of business, and the benefits of some amount of enforced collective behavior to be worth the loss of some amount of individual freedom of action.

Sure and many of them, like monarchy, or slavery, or nationalism, or big government (or any government that goes beyond defense of property) are ethical nightmares...

You haven't refuted anything that I claimed, about you being a person who believes the threat of brutality can solve social problems.

Who is "we"? Congress has a 9% approval rating! 9%! The system does not reflect the will of Americans... No one wants all of these programs, and they obviously obviously don't work.... they were manipulated into existence through democracy in it's current form, where property rights violation is allowed by law, and hundreds of millions of people are violently forced to obey.

The problem of course, is that after something like say, the PPACA is voted in... it is extremely hard to get rid of. Those benefiting will never be outspoken or outlobbied by those who feel it is wrong. That is why we have a mountain of ineffective social and economic regulation.

I know it's sooooo crazy that i'm saying democracy in its current form isn't the best possible system, but it really isn't if you think about it.

Under a libertarian society, since only property rights would be protected, essentially the only thing that would require a vote would be national defense. It could be a democracy, sure (it honestly doesn't even have to be) but the democracy would be stripped of its power to inflict force on peaceful citizens.

This is our fundamental disagreement: You think it's okay to sacrifice freedom, and use brutal, violent measures to try and control innocent peaceful human beings, I don't.

Perhaps. I'd probably be convinced to say probably.

But the alternative you're putting forth is incredibly naive. Just as naive as the assumptions that socialism/communism is based upon...in fact, the assumptions are pretty identical.

Well, I guess i'm sorry you didn't know what it was? But that's what it is. What I said above is a pretty good description. There might be another one, but that's accurate.

When slavery was around everyone did it, since the beginning of time. It was wrong. So that claim is unfortunately meaningless. I'm not saying you were meaning bad by it, but it means nothing.

I found several articles with a few examples. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=has+a+libertari...ety+existed%3F

Thinking to the future is important. As a good real world microcosm, I think Ebay is a good example of a private, essentially unregulated libertarian marketplace with disagreement/theft resolution and commerce handled internally. It works flawlessly, of course, and is already capitalized higher than most nations.

It is indeed possible. But i'd say the reason it hasn't come about yet on a large scale modern society (The US is extremely primitive, bear in mind we disenfranchised women until 100 years ago) is because a violent group has always taken control quickly and imposed taxation, slavery, etc. on its people for it's own gain.

It is an advanced form of civilization no doubt. I feel that it will only become available through technology. Just like people went from believing in god-kings, to emperors, to parliaments, to representational violent bureaucracies, they will ultimately just believe in themselves.

People are very good at dealing with societies problems when left to their own devices.

I don't see how it's naive. I actually agree (on some level)...I've never said this stuff is going to happen soon or even remotely soon. All I've said that its the ethically correct way to run a society and fundamentally it can work better than the current system.

Sure, it could take forever for people in society to stop violently forcing each other to do things. To stop destroying creativity and forcing inefficiency etc. But it doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. At least AIM for the right thing.

Communism isn't comparable at all!. It is almost the ultimate violation of property rights and is strictly unethical. Couldn't be more opposite... Really? I get it that both are idealistic (I mean if it's just the assumption, bear in mind that communism did take over half of the modern world, once we get that shot we won't let you down ).... but to compare the two is just spiteful... Libertarians are fair, reasonable people!

All I am putting forth here is that this system is the ethically correct way to do things, and that maybe, JUST MAYBE, that could be best for society overall... Believe me, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, i've hedged my bets and will strive to lead a great life and profit as much as I can in the world as it is.

Never is the word you were looking for.

And I prefer things that will actually work in reality.

They both seem to be predicated on "doing the right thing for everyone else". Ignoring basic human responses and the like. That is, people writing about libertarianism will say something (X) will be supplied in a libertarian world because others will see it as a good thing, and will think of others, and so on and so forth. But likely what they are thinking is "well, we should have X because it's critical for society, so I'll just assume that people will supply X". Meanwhile, there are people that think the following:

And that, right there, is the problem with AC/libertarianism (in its extreme form).

Libertarianism and Communism both assume that people will work towards the collective (and so everything will automagically work out), while ignoring the natural human sentiments in the quote above. That's the naivety

Saying never is just you not understanding the course of human history. Far worse shackles have been thrown off than this... we've come a long long way and it won't stop. So while I agree with you in the short term (probably at least for my lifetime), In the long term I actually think a free society is very likely to emerge.

And I've explained how it can work in reality. Sigh... There is no problem a libertarian society can't face. Your only argument against it existing in reality is that violent authorities will suppress it to keep the status quo ( same with slavery, monarchy etc.)

You just have no vision. It's sad.

As to your second point, Libertarianism isn't predicated on doing ANYTHING to or for anyone else. There is no collective. There is only property rights and the utmost regard for liberty. It's hard to really respond to the rest of your post because that initial statement is just so so wrong and you obviously only read my post to find a point of contention....

As for your final critique, the profit motive has produced almost everything of use in society. Don't see your point there either...

Anyways, I can tell what you are really talking about are the "big" positive rights. School... Healthcare etc.

I like to use the example of cars. The average family will probably spend 30-40-50k+ on cars over the course of their lives.

Now I live in Hungary. We used to have nationalized auto distribution. The system was massively inefficient... Some families waited 5+ years to get a car. For those born into the Soviet System, they thought the same thing. "How will society provide every family with a car!?" But it did. The costs of production and ownership were driven so low through free market competition that now nearly every family is able to afford at least a basic one if they need.

The exact same mechanism will work with education (which could conceivably cost far far less than cars), and with health care. Stop the force and have faith in freedom.

So run me through some examples. I can't even wrap my head around this. I'm in Canada, so I can only really compare it to what's normal for me.

So in your model, there are no taxes on wages, right? So what happens for example if someone very poor gets very sick? What do the unlucky ones who get stuck with a rare illness do? In that model is the onus on the citizen to pay for all their healthcare and insurance, and then hope their insurance covers it?

Would all the roads be tolls? How do you even manage that?

Who pays for emergency services? Disaster relief? Research? I mean in the your world research strikes me as almost impossible, except when funded by private industry (which would always presumably only be for the good of that industry, and not man kind).

In your world it sounds like a lot of people are left do die, frankly.

People get sick and die. That is a part of life. If humankind feels it should be charitable it can... and it would be (keep reading...)

What most proponents of the statist model don't understand, is that charitable contributions last year were in the US were ~300 billion dollars, nearly a third of welfare spending already!!... And realize that welfare spending also has MASSIVE administrative costs, the amount reaching the poor is even further reduced. Private charities have been shown time and time again to do more cost effective work, to the point that the effective amount reaching the poor via charity could already be ball-park comparable.

Now imagine how high the charitable contribution number would be if taxes (many trillions per year) were essentially eliminated!!! We would have a better funded, more efficient private system supporting public welfare literally overnight!

The fact is the welfare issue is a complex one. It NEEDS the private sector to create efficient solutions. Bad charities should be selected against, not allowed to exist indefinitely by getting their funds through the threat of brutality.

Yes. Collect tolls... It's far cheaper than paying the taxes necessary. It would be very very easy to privatize roads, it's been done all over the place already, and there's no issue there at all.

Also keep in mind the vast majority of the US interstate highway system is archaic and dated... yet another system that needs private sector innovation


Charity is better at both of these things than government. Seriously? Look at what happened during our last natural disaster... NO was literally abandoned by our government in it's time of need.

As far as "research"...What the government does is NOT for the good of mankind. It's a power structure, nothing more. Government has no inherent morality and if you want to go down that road you're going to need a bigger boat.

First of all, government doesn't "do" research. It funds research through theft. I remember people talking a big storm about stem cells years ago. They thought the government was "shutting down it's stem cell program" or "banning research on stem cells". All that happened was they stopped giving tax payer money to an inefficient freebie program.

The private sector is, by it's very definition more capable of producing cost effective research. Again 99% of scientific innovation was driven by the private sector...

A libertarian society, unconstrained by government, would flourish into a thriving technological center. People can do anything they want!

It might be confusing because things have come into existence as a result of government. But it stands to reason that the most financially inefficient system will produce the worst research. The internet etc. would have produced just fine.

Now, on the flipside, think about the things that government scientific sponsorship has created! Forced sterilization practices of minorities in the 1920's, Atomic weaponry, the AK-47, Napalm, Depleted Uranium shells.

Due to the fact that government needs to control people (domestic and abroad) through brutality, they have funded production of almost all of the world's great evils. The private sector is better both in terms of efficiency (of course) and in terms of greater good for society. The government simply produces too many evil things for it to even be a considered a net positive.

[QUOTE=MakingMoves;42176316] Monarchy, slavery, nationalism and big government aren't philosophies.

One of the things that I find interesting is the libertarian's enjoyment of over-emotional wording. "Brutality," "violence," etc.

A partial list:

Humanists, utilitarian consequentialists, those that believe in enlightened self-interest, social contract theorists, rule of law adherents, most economists, nearly all social scientists, classic and modern liberals, most conservatives.

I'm not paying for the police or the army, nor for the protection of your property. Are you going to brutally and violently force me to?

Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from chartering a fractional reserve bank, or a no reserve bank? Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from purchasing land at the head of a river putting in a dam so I can sell the water? Are you going to violently and brutally prevent me from usery? Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from putting a garbage dump on MY land next to your land? Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from buying all the property around your property and charging whatever I want for your passage through MY land? Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from freely acquiring horizontal monopoly in some important asset and charging outlandish amounts because I have you by the balls? Are you going to brutally and violently force me to wear pants in public? Are you going to violently and brutally disallow me from using my position as a wealthy person to starve my workers out if it pleases me to do so? Are you going to brutally and violently disallow me from freely teaming up with others to do any of the above?

Our fundamental disagreement is that you think that individual property rights are more important than starvation and destitution, education, libraries, research, roads, bridges, parks, potable water, railroads, labor standards, housing standards, uncontrolled monopolies, homelessness, food safety, rules limiting the allowed behavior of financial institutions and business interests. Basically, all the stuff of general economic prosperity.

In a real and practical way, libertarianism would, for the vast majority of the people, reduce the very freedoms it states that it upholds.