If you can promote this for me... I would make a special place for you in my heart.

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Tragic-Life-of-Ludwig-Boltzmann

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
hey dude,
thanks for the promote and the stroll through the queue!

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Tragic-Life-of-Ludwig-Boltzmann

Fuck you and your controversy category... I'll rape your Cherokee grandfather in front of your wife with my daughter's baby rattle while I force you to listen to Ludwig Von, then combine your tears with my girlfriend's tears, who I just punched in the cunt (because she didn't wear her Islam face thingy); then, I'll mix it with poo and agent orange, and sell it as anti-AIDS medicine in Africa. All proceeds, that aren't converted to carbon credits and WoW gold, will go to the Catholic church and Fred Phelps' God Hates Fags site. I'll write about it prison and dedicate it to the memory of Hitler, weapons of mass destruction, and all the fans of the Twilight series. P.S. Before I have sex with your grandfather, I will tear out the foetus of a pregnant Hindu priestess, fuck that foetus, then use its stim cells to increase the length of my cock -- which will be ramming into a cow after this all happens. Then I'll eat the cow. Then I'll accept JESUS CHRIST as my personal savious, kill myself and have my remains fed to Pepperridge Farm chickens.

See ya in Heaven, bitch nigga.

>> ^bmacs27:
How exactly is force the exclusive domain of the government? What about the polluter that is forcing you to breath lower quality air? I can't do anything about that. I need a government to enforce my property rights over the air. Yes, the government employs force. It's our only recourse against the force employed by concentrated capital.

Everyone has access to some form of violence, and violent impulses are part of human nature. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the initiation of violence against another usually is. There are many ways to repress the initiation of violence, but the ultimate resource is violent retaliation. In a civilized society, a government should try to establish a monopoly over the use of force, so that private citizens can concentrate on more productive endeavours and not have to worry about coercion from fellow citizens.

The level by which an individual is free of coercion from others determines how civilized a society is.

So, I'm not saying government has actual exclusivity over violence, but the reason we have government is so that it creates a monopoly over violence, so that it can use violence itself to repress those who use violence against each other. That doesn't mean government is allowed to go nuts and use violence to plan our lives, redistribute wealth, establish monopolies, control the currency, etc.

Services that *require* violence should be done by government. You can't have a "wagging finger" police, they're law enforcers, you can't have courts that can't apply punishment or incarceration, a military that shoots flowers, etc. However, any other service that doesn't *require* the use of force to be performed (education, healthcare, housing, insurance, product safety, space exploration, research, etc.), should be done and will tend to be done better by the private sector.

Please explain to me the law of nature which prevents corporate oligarchy in the absence of government force. Collusion is the rational selection for a small number of powerful agents. They reap the return, prevent entry into marketplaces, and price gouge when privy to exclusive control over an inelastic market (such as healthcare). You've been reading Ludwig too much... I'd recommend reading more of his brother Richard's work. He actually contributed to knowledge.

Well, how would they prevent entry into marketplaces in a free market? Usually it's the collusion between govt + corporations that stops new players from getting in a market with legislation and subsidies. If that's out of the picture, what's left, price dumping? Dumping can push competitors away, but, while it lasts, it's good for consumers (lower prices) and a dumping company's profit takes a hit. No matter how wealthy a company is, it can't practice dumping forever.

If, through price gouging, a company tries to take advantage of its "monopoly" in a market, that creates demand for competition. No matter how inelastic a market is, that doesn't stop the dynamics of supply and demand.

If you're dismissive of Ludwig's contribution to economics, yeah, I hear ya. Whatever knowledge he contributed got pretty much diluted in the mess that economics currently is. If after years of study you were lead to believe you're an economist, I can only offer you my sincere condolences.

Like I stated, healthcare is an inelastic market like police, fire, and water. As such, it should be provided by the government because the status quo of a small number of profit-driven actors in the market leads to price gouging.

You're talking about a highly regulated market that is about 60% provided by government. Gee, I wonder why it's so inelastic.

I'm not saying people got greedy... (loads of crap) It was the banks writing a junk bond, and slapping a smily face on it.

Look into how low interest rates set by the Fed for so long encouraged people getting into debt, how government pursued policies to encourage home ownership (good intentions gone bad), how the subprime market was only possible because of government guaranteed loans.

I've said this before, but I always find it curious how creative interventionists become when they come up with all sorts of "unsolvable" problems that arise from a free market, yet can't use any of that imagination attributing bad consequences to government intervention in a regulated market. It's always the market who gets the blame.

Actually, they do. If our dollar were to suddenly become worthless, they would have no currency reserves. While I agree, they have the upper hand in this, they've already seen what a collapse of consumption on our soil does to their own economic growth. (...)

China along with many other countries were duped into using dollars as reserves, pieces of paper we can print as many as we like. For a while now they've been accumulating actual reserves, such as gold, in preparation for the "quantitative easing" we'll soon be indulging ourselves in.

Consumption isn't a huge favor the world needs from us. Anyone can consume, it's not that hard. what matters is that you pay for it and America hasn't been able to do that for a very long time now. Hell, China has many more consumers than us who can actually pay for stuff with real money. Why would they care to export to us when they can consume most of their goods themselves?

Do you think a chinese is thankful he works in a dishwasher factory so he can go home and wash his clothes by hand on a rock? Or making cars for us so he can ride his bicycle to work?

Their government is also being stupid because they're still trying to prop up the dollar and devaluing their currency by keeping it pegged. They'll wise up eventually.

I didn't say hyperinflation... I said inflation. Between 2 and 4% inflation is a good thing. If you disagree, you are beyond help.

That's kind of a silly statement. Governments like inflation, people who have to produce and earn money don't. That's like saying "low interest rates are good". Depends on who you ask, they're good for debters, but not good for lenders and savers.

As for the Austrian school, yes, it's BS. (BS)

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." -- Hayek. Not that a keynesian would care.

No force, but enforce contracts. Right.

Touché Señor Nitpicker I meant something along the lines of "don't allow use of force among citizens".

It's easy not to worry about how the rules are set up so long as they are benefitting you. Once you see that not everybody is getting a fair deal, you realize the moral, and even selfish reasons for entering a broader scoped social contract. In the end, we all benefit from a well educated, healthy society. We just need to put up the VC.

Unfairness is, most often than not, advanced by the use of force. Problems that don't involve force to begin with, don't require force to be solved. Violence is in a different domain. That's like bullying people into liking you.

Why aren't you questioning the selfishness of those who advocate the use of force? They want power over a whole domain of other people's lives. They say people are being wronged yet they propose using the most destructive tool, something that opens up so much potential for abuse, to solve everything.

Libertarians are always worried about individuals instead of this group, or that group, or whoever claims to be speaking for the interests of society, not out of blind selfishness, but because "individual" is a very cool concept with the following magic properties:

An individual is the smallest minority, so when you help the individual, you help the minority that needs the most protection from abuse (they're the smallest!). An individual is the most numerous minority, so you help the most minorities. An individual is the majority because everyone is an individual. So when you keeps things always at the level of individual, individual rights, individual liberties, etc. you're helping everybody and people tend not to be benefitted at the expense of others.

That sounds a lot more fair to me.

Most of those activities you mentioned require the use of force, so they can't be done by private citizens, because the use of force is exclusive to government. Any other activity that doesn't require the use of force shouldn't be done by government because it can be done (and will tend to be done better) by the private sector.

How exactly is force the exclusive domain of the government? What about the polluter that is forcing you to breath lower quality air? I can't do anything about that. I need a government to enforce my property rights over the air. Yes, the government employs force. It's our only recourse against the force employed by concentrated capital.


If anarchy was the end result of libertarian ideals, they would be called anarchists. Corporate oligarchies are much more likely when government regulates the economy, and gets in bed with corporations. You have to realize that any "archy" requires government, force. It can't sprout out of markets where force is not allowed.

Please explain to me the law of nature which prevents corporate oligarchy in the absence of government force. Collusion is the rational selection for a small number of powerful agents. They reap the return, prevent entry into marketplaces, and price gouge when privy to exclusive control over an inelastic market (such as healthcare). You've been reading Ludwig too much... I'd recommend reading more of his brother Richard's work. He actually contributed to knowledge.


Does that overhead in the private sector have anything to do with excessive government regulation of the healthcare insurance market? Maybe it would be less of a burden to compete in a market that is almost 60% provided by government?

Hopefully not. I'm a single-payer kinda guy. Like I stated, healthcare is an inelastic market like police, fire, and water. As such, it should be provided by the government because the status quo of a small number of profit-driven actors in the market leads to price gouging.


Government and the Fed created the moral hazards that led to what you're attributing as the cause. A lot of people acted stupidly, you're saying it's cultural, that people "got greedy", ignoring the incentives and government guarantees that led people to believe there weren't any risks.

I'm not saying people got greedy (though the few did). I'm saying the majority of people got stupid. The laws that were in place to prevent the overextension of consumer credit were withdrawn. That is, they removed government intervention in the marketplace. That allowed unfortunate people to overextend themselves to the benefit of the few. Now, before you go off on some rant about the laws governing entrance into the sub-prime housing market, remember those laws would not have been nearly as dangerous had they not also repealed restrictions on debt securitization, turned a blind eye to insurance market regulation of CDS, and loosened fraction reserve restrictions. Those three de-regulatory events had, imo, far more reaching ramifications in this crisis. They removed the counter-party risk from debt initiators, and instead incentivized predatory lending. It was not government subsidy of the sub-prime market that distorted the incentives. It was the banks writing a junk bond, and slapping a smily face on it.


Ever hear of "cutting your losses"? There's no "sell high" here, the US can't pay back its lenders, not at the rate the US government is spending and willing to spend for the next few years, and not in a recession where government is ruining productivity. China will be part of the recovery effort alright, but they'll much rather do it without the US strapped to its back.
Think about it, if China lent the US more than a trillion dollars, it's better to lose that money than lend us 2 or 3 more trillions just to watch even more money go to waste. They don't need us.

Actually, they do. If our dollar were to suddenly become worthless, they would have no currency reserves. While I agree, they have the upper hand in this, they've already seen what a collapse of consumption on our soil does to their own economic growth. Without that growth, the chinese government doesn't have a political toothpick to stand on. I think you'd be surprised with the swings in currency valuation these days just how much higher the dollar could yet climb back. Our workforce is skilled, and increasingly well educated. In any event, it doesn't make sense to sell all at once. What they'll probably do is wait until the systematic risk has stabilized, and then slowly convert their treasury notes into special drawing rights at a rate which will not drastically undermine valuation of the dollar. I agree however, they will likely discontinue purchasing the debt, forcing us into "quantitative easing" (another winner from the PR team).


The Constitution is a good reference, most things the federal government does that are not expressly authorized in the Constitution are excesses.

So the market for nuclear weapons, particularly when wielded by militiamen, shouldn't be regulated?


NetRunner, is that you? I guess you think hyperinflation is a synonym for "awesome".
If you actually studied Austrian economics and you think it's "non-mathematical" and "BS", yes, we'll have to agree to disagree. You're beyond help.

Net who? No, I'm afraid there can be more than one educated progressive. I didn't say hyperinflation... I said inflation. Between 2 and 4% inflation is a good thing. If you disagree, you are beyond help.

As for the Austrian school, yes, it's BS. It's been discredited repeatedly. The predictions don't hold water, so they say "you can't use mathematics because people are too complicated." Even the Chicago school monetarists (many of whom worked with Von Mises) know it's BS. Once you run out of room with monetary policy what should you do is the only argument left. I think the Keynesians about have that fight won now that they've shown how to explain the late seventies.


Don't worry about that. Keep rules simple, no fraud, enforce contracts, no use of force. Everything else will tend to sort itself out. Also, don't be afraid of technology.

No force, but enforce contracts. Right. You show no regard for the existence of externalities, nor the rampant exploitation of the commons by the private sector. In fact, you explicitly removed that single section from my post indicating either your ignorance of basic economics, or an intentional dodging of the topic.

It's easy not to worry about how the rules are set up so long as they are benefitting you. Once you see that not everybody is getting a fair deal, you realize the moral, and even selfish reasons for entering a broader scoped social contract. In the end, we all benefit from a well educated, healthy society. We just need to put up the VC.

- "What is your aim in philosophy?---To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle."
- "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution”
~ Marcus Aurelius

In reply to this comment by Crake:
That sure is a creepy avatar you got there... where is it from?

In reply to this comment by Almanildo:
That's the logo of Gentle Giant, my favourite prog-rock band. I've posted some music by them here.


Heh, reminds me a bit of good old Ludwig-van in this.

Its funny when military spending is increased to $670 billion, and several trillion is spent bailing out CEOs.

I dare you to actually read the bible you preach to others.

http://www.amazon.com/SOCIALISM-Lib-Works-Ludwig-Mises/dp/0913966630
http://mises.org/books/socialism.pdf

is it possible that your professor misunderstood it? i don't know who he was or his credentials, but lew rockwell is the president of the ludwig von mises institute--one of the most frequently cited economic sources in the world. have you read the original work, ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas? or any of bastiat's contemporaries? has your professor read smith, hazlitt, or mises?

i was not taught in university, but i have explored it for myself, and what rockwell presents in that video is, to me, very much in line with both the intent of the original author, and his subsequent contemporaries.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
Am sorry but this is stupid, I just can't believe someone would misread the broken window theory in such a way.

The broken window theory was taught to me as a function of multipliers across the economy not as a net GDP gain scenario. i.e. as an incentive to drive economic activity across a model small scale economy to make students understand the multiplier effect.

Furthermore the government as a window breaker is a fallacy to claim as a statement. The government stimulus to the economy is to loosen money in the economy, so instead of saving there is expenditure, because the government is expending money, the workers will have added income, so they will spend it and on and on through the application of multiplier effect.

This is why I hate modern economics as a whole, because seemingly educated people like this come out and postulate a economy theory in a model economy to try and explain a far more complex system. Ridicule it and then put forth their own model economic theory and claim that it will cure all social ills, such as constant tax cuts.

BansheeX : What makes you think I'm a Keynesian? I think all the economic theories leave much to be desired. Certainly, the statistics economists use aren't that good. But looking at those gives you a better idea of whats going on than reading the unscientific rantings of Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises or Murray Rothbard. It doesn't matter if their theory of the Great Depression sounds convincing or not. It was not arrived at scientifically, but rather from armchair musings. The economy is far too complicated to understand that way.

"It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van."

>> ^imstellar28: You should read up on economics. Heres a start:
Henry Hazlitt "Economics in one Lesson"
Milton Friedman "Free to Choose"
Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations"
Ludwig von Mises "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics"


Wow, presumptuous, patronizing, and evasive at the same time. You stay classy.

>> ^rychan:
I personally think that Ron Paul is a bit of a Christian extremist with economic policy based in the stone age (literally basing an economy on the rate of mineral collection) and I would never vote for him.


You should read up on economics. Heres a start:

Henry Hazlitt "Economics in one Lesson"
Milton Friedman "Free to Choose"
Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations"
Ludwig von Mises "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics"

http://www.videosift.com/video/Ludwig-Von-Mises-Liberty-and-Economics

http://www.videosift.com/video/Ludwig-Von-Mises-Liberty-and-Economics