A. I don't understand how you're arguing we haven't been practicing Keynesian economics since the Great Depression. We've run deficits almost the entire time, lowered interest rates even further during recessions, and enact stimulus when recessions hit in the form of tax rebate checks, income tax cuts to consumers, gov't programs to provide jobs to increase demand, extended unemployment, etc., although we normally do a poor job of running surpluses when we should. But in a nutshell, that is Keynesian economics. And it has worked pretty well overall. Influence of monetarist policies have tamed the Keynesian interventions, but there's little doubt that all the above actions in the last two recessions were born of Keynesian thought.

B. If a business is making $100,000 off your labor, but is paying you $80,000, resulting in a $20,000 profit, why wouldn't they fire you if they could fire someone to do your job for $50,000, resulting in a 250% increase in profit? It does happen. I was the victim of it in 2004.

C. If the devils in the details could be worked out, and that's a big if, I'd be in favor of having stipulations to unemployment benefits. But you got a lot of issues you'd have to deal with. What if the person on unemployment has kids? You're gonna deny them welfare if the kids would starve? Very complicated issue as just one example.

I do think though we need in this age better education to retrain workers for the new jobs that come into the US as jobs get outsourced to other countries.

D. About the FDIC... First off, you're saying that people could check the banks' ability to make too risky of loans, but it's a whole other thing to say FDIC insurance encourages bad lending. It's simply not true. Again, regardless if deposits are insured or not, banks will go under if they make risky loans regardless of deposit insurance for consumers in most cases. Again, bailouts are a whole other issue. As for people checking the banks for bad lending, that's a pipe dream. The general consumer has no clue what are good or bad loans overall, nor the time to monitor the lending practices of banks. Hell, BANKERS didn't understand the crap they got themselves into in the mortgage crisis until it was too late, and they're professionals in the field. It's not a practical solution. On top of all that, the FDIC does in some ways help to ensure baseline qualities of banks. Not every bank can be FDIC insured, and many of the regulations FDIC insist upon make the banks more solvent, etc. So when consumers insist the bank is FDIC insured, they're insuring their deposits as well as guaranteeing a minimal level of integrity in the bank itself.

Lastly, I'm totally down with reasoned dialogue, even from points of view I completely oppose. I'm not slamming this guy because he's a conservative. I'm slamming him because he made ridiculous claims that are obviously factually inaccurate. Ideology shouldn't blind people from obvious fact that don't fit.

>> ^bmacs27:

@heropsycho
I'd disagree with you on a couple of points.

However, I will say once again, Keynesian economics works. We've practiced it since the Great Depression, and it works without a doubt.
First of all, we haven't really practiced Keynesian economics since stagflation during Carter. The decoupling of inflation and growth was very troubling to economists as the Keynesian theory had no explanation for it. In the period between Carter and Obama, we effectively practiced Monetarist economics, or "supply-side" economics. It's that economic policy everyone is railing against even though it was practiced during one of the periods of greatest growth in our history (obviously there are confounds, e.g. the personal computer). The Austrians just don't think that demand focused interventions will work any better than supply focused interventions. There is always a deadweight loss to taxation.

Profit centers do in fact get outsourced, although granted not as often as cost centers. Why would a company not outsource a profit center if it would increase profits in the long run?
Profit centers are most often NOT outsourced. If there is another profit center abroad, you expand, you don't fire the guy that's making you more money than he's costing you.

And prolonging unemployment has also provided an artificial market for goods and services for those who do have jobs. It's not so simple to suggest that extended unemployment is a disincentive to work. It's also providing those who are collecting it who actually can't find another job with income to spend, which props the entire economy up. It's not an either/or; it's both. And there are far more people right now on unemployment who cannot find another job than those holding out for something that pays what they're used to.
I understand the demand side argument. I'm saying, rather than giving them money for nothing, let's give them money to become hirable. It's similar to saying that the money handed to banks should have had conditions attached. When people are begging for money, they ought to accept some stipulations.

Finally, bear in mind that when it comes to finding common ground, and that kind of thing, you cannot find common ground with people who are fundamentally altering obvious fact to suit their views. Schiff made to completely ludicrous claims (child labor was ended by the market, and the FDIC deposit insurance fuels bank speculation). Both claims are preposterous.
I agree with you about child labor, however I'd disagree with you about the FDIC. People should be paying attention to what banks do with their money, and respond to poor decision making with the withdrawal of their deposits. Instead, they just assume it doesn't matter (in terms of risk) where they keep their money and just shop for the highest interest rate. Those higher interest rates are most often fueled by more than traditional lending (as anyone banking in such a manner would lose deposits to higher yields in the distorted marketplace).
Also, I'm Keynesian. I just don't think free market viewpoint you'd read in the Economist, Financial Times, WSJ, or any other reasonably reputable conservative source is being well represented on this website. If we all cheerlead for one team, we'll never substantially challenge our own groupthink.

The version linked to by @IronDwarf includes the comments made by the other guests who ask the question: "What would you have the president do?"

The answer, in a nutshell, is that the president should begin punching bankers in the face.

I want him to do an observation where when he gets in bed with his girl she asks for a massage. These are serious massages that last for a while and expend much energy since they include, intricate eye tickling, gentle hair play, just a lot of gentle precision & of course massage.... He says, "ok, but you have to massage me afterwards." Then she says, "That's not fair because then you get to go to sleep while I'm massaging you." Then he says, "ok, but tomorrow you have to massage me until I fall asleep." She considers it a deal and this situation occurs every night for six more years.

That was my last relationship in a nutshell. I almost never got the last massage. What a cruel, selfish lady

So Teddy Roosevelt was a communist?!

It doesn't mean there's no problem government can't fix. It means that gov't can fix shortcomings in a free market system with reforms. You know things like the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, those terrible gov't programs that spend other people's money to do things like ensuring what you buy at the grocery store won't kill you. How wasteful!

The Progressive Movement was about eliminating corruption in government. It was about improving society through various means, including gov't involvement when needed, but not always. For example, Henry Ford paid his workers well, very much against what most factory owners did, as Ford was heavily influenced by the Progressive Movement. Settlement Houses were charity based, not government run, and helped to educate adults to become more effective workers by teaching various skills. Yes, it overstepped its bounds with Prohibition, but it also brought the following communist, socialist, un-American things:

Women's Suffrage
Meritocracy to gov't agencies and officials
Modernized public schools
Food and Drug Administration
Busted up monopolies to protect consumers
Regulated unfair business practices designed to eliminate competition at the detriment to consumers
Safer working conditions
End of child labor
Fairer pay for workers with things like the minimum wage
Unemployment insurance

I'm sure qm will have a problem with some of the above, but how can you argue with the vast majority of them? Most historians rank T. Roosevelt and FDR as two of America's best presidents. They're probably the two most well known Progressives in US History.

This is of course all part of the communist conspiracy!!!

>> ^quantumushroom:

Progressivism = socialism = statism = communism lite and regular brand.
Nutshell:

There's no problem government can't solve! Just keep throwing other peoples' money at it!

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Someone care to explain what "progressive" means? I can't find a suitable definition on the internets, or in commonality of liberal progressives. The only meaningful definition was from progressive tax codes, but I don't think that idea encapsulates the entirety of this vague concept.

Progressivism = socialism = statism = communism lite and regular brand.

Nutshell:

There's no problem government can't solve! Just keep throwing other peoples' money at it!


>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Someone care to explain what "progressive" means? I can't find a suitable definition on the internets, or in commonality of liberal progressives. The only meaningful definition was from progressive tax codes, but I don't think that idea encapsulates the entirety of this vague concept.

Canada in a nutshell.

He said it himself, "When is it time to start thinking about me?" That's it in a nutshell. Some people are just of the mentality that they take care of themselves first, no matter the circumstances or who it affects. Even if it makes them complete hypocrites. That's a small price to pay. As long as they get what they want, who cares?

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.
Look up the freeman movement and the distinction between common law and admiralty law

@blankfist, no, I have it right.

Schiff: If the Stimulus passes, hyperinflation will destroy the country by 2010 at the latest.

Krugman: The economy will be stuck at high unemployment with low inflation for years, despite a 0% interest rate at the Fed.

I apparently just hit my NYT paywall limit for the month, so I don't have a link for Krugman but that's Krugman in a nutshell from the late 2008 through early 2009 period on what we'd see.

I dunno about you, but I don't remember having to take wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread last year.

>> ^blankfist:

But he does propose a theory, that humans are too complex to quantify en masse. Central authorities cannot account for every complexity in human behavior, so it's ineloquent to set monetary policy from the top down. It should be placed in the hands of the people to decide how the economy should work.


Right, but that's just a mix of right-wing populism and saying "we don't know anything about economics." It's mostly just a failing of the video, not of actual Hayek.

Real Hayek had a pretty solid argument for why markets are better than centrally planned economies. In fact, it's Hayek's argument in particular that makes me a pro-market liberal, and not some sort of more left-wing radical. But that has to do with the inability for people to express information about preferences in some non-market way that a central planner could use to match up demand with supply appropriately.

The problem with that rearing its head in a conversation about Hayek vs. Keynes is that it doesn't apply to Keynes's theory at all. He isn't taking away the market mechanism and replacing it with a central planner.

The problem is that Hayek was never big on coming up with actual theoretical models for how economies react to certain things. Instead, he was just big on coming up with narratives about how he thought government doing things to the economy always led to folly. That's the whole Austrian "school" of economics in a nutshell though -- they aren't interested in modeling things like scientists, just telling stories like historians or philosophers. Maybe they're right, maybe they're not, but there's no real way to use data to validate or refute them, and that's the way they like to keep it.

1. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France

Roads are built and designed for drivers, and drivers only. Bicycles are awkwardly sandwiched between motorised traffic and parked cars with doors swinging open, or shunted onto less convenient side roads. The laws as well, are written by drivers, for drivers' safety and convenience alone.

2. Nobody but pedants care about cyclists breaking laws because it doesn't result in anything worse than a pedestrian jay-walking does. So yes, I am actually saying that it's fine for cyclists to break victimless traffic laws. There's no danger to anyone. These laws didn't exist anywhere until car drivers showed they were unable to manage their vehicles safely without them. And then cyclists, who had often campaigned for these laws to bring car drivers into check, were then forced to follow them themselves, rather than devise a new set of laws for cyclists. I think it's time for that new set of laws.

And something's working -- either CM or cyclists' flagrant disregard for unfair traffic laws -- because in Toronto, the city realized there was no reason cyclists shouldn't be able to ride the other way on residential one-way streets, or turn right on red lights (at some lights cars can't turn right because this blocks the flow of traffic coming from the left), so they changed some by-laws to allow these things.

3. This idea that car drivers don't break laws is utter fiction, and one I'm happy to draw attention to. Cars regularly pass cyclists at an unsafe distance, follow at an unsafe distance, make unsafe turns and lane changes from in front of and beside cyclists, and open their doors into cyclists' paths. But for some reason, nobody thinks of these things as laws that are being broken. Nobody notices or cares. What's worse, breaking these laws is actually dangerous! These laws exist because people get injured and killed when they're not followed. They're designed for cars, and it's car drivers not following them.

4. (following on #2 above) Since the laws aren't written to fit cyclists travelling style, we learn that we have to pick and choose which ones we want to follow, because to follow the law literally would sometimes be dangerous (e.g. cyclists, like cars, are supposed to take up the whole lane and not let anyone pass in the same lane ever). This sets a bad precedent because now many cyclists simply decide for themselves that riding on sidewalks, or over people's lawns is OK. It's not. If the laws on the books actually represented how cyclists moved, it wouldn't occur to cyclists not to follow laws, except in as much as it occurs to car drivers as well. In a nutshell, bad laws lead to bad behaviour.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^messenger:
Most, however, will agree with what you said, that we're protesting for equal access to the roads.
Maybe the laws are different in Canada, but in the US a bicycle is subject to all traffic laws when on a road, just like a car. It doesn't get more equal than that. In fact, they've got it quite a bit better, because they also get to ignore virtually all of those laws with no repercussions.
What most cyclists need, in my opinion, is a reality check.

Is it just me or is this pretty much the United States in a nutshell? Smoking pot is considered a sin, yet there are quiet pot smokers everywhere and everyone is worried about God or the government smiting them for smoking pot. This could apply to more countries of course but Americans seems to get spooked the most when pot is mentioned, especially if it's on T.V.

I really hope that this isn't going to be Soul Calibur 5 in a nutshell...

As long as one individual will use their personal strength and/or influence to take advantage of another individual, the state is necessary.

That is what the state is, at a fundamental level. It is the gathering of individuals to reduce the abuses of one against another. We give up a portion of our wealth so that we may keep the rest. If we gave nothing, there would be nobody to stop the bully from taking it all.

Of course there are problems with it. That's because it is rife with people trying to use it to their own personal advantage. The maker of this video sees an infested house and thinks the best way to get rid of the infestation is to burn the house down. Utter foolishness. The house protects us from the elements! Fight the bugs, not the house!

When human nature evolves into a mind-share (like the borg mentioned above) then we can get rid of the state, because we will all truly feel the hurt we cause others. Until then, there will be destructive selfishness that requires group action to resist, and that is government in a nutshell.