Capitalism vs. Socialism

[Klixxer]

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: Dissipate
2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners. More on that here.

And why does 12.1% of US citizens live in poverty?

First of all poverty is relative. If you compared that 12.1% to people living 600 years ago, you would notice that even those considered wealthy 600 years ago didn't live as well off as those considered impoverished today. How did this radical change come about? Only one way: technology developed, mass produced and mass distributed in the free market. All of the toys and gadgets that are only available to the wealthy eventually come down in price and become available to everyone. It happened with radios, televisions and cars. It will continue to happen in spite of the enormously hampering of the market.

Those 12.1% of U.S. citizens live in "poverty" mostly because they made poor life decisions, such as poor family planning but they also live in "poverty" because of minimum wage laws and the other millions of regulations that cost businesses $900 billion a year. When the government taxes and regulates, it is the poorest people who suffer as a result, because the free market is stripped of its means to produce more & better opportunities.

But still US is the western country with highest percentage of people living in poverty, funny enough it's also the country with lowest taxes.

No it isn't the country with the lowest taxes.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Klixxer

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: biostud666

Originally posted by: Dissipate
2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners. More on that here.

And why does 12.1% of US citizens live in poverty?

First of all poverty is relative. If you compared that 12.1% to people living 600 years ago, you would notice that even those considered wealthy 600 years ago didn't live as well off as those considered impoverished today. How did this radical change come about? Only one way: technology developed, mass produced and mass distributed in the free market. All of the toys and gadgets that are only available to the wealthy eventually come down in price and become available to everyone. It happened with radios, televisions and cars. It will continue to happen in spite of the enormously hampering of the market.

Those 12.1% of U.S. citizens live in "poverty" mostly because they made poor life decisions, such as poor family planning but they also live in "poverty" because of minimum wage laws and the other millions of regulations that cost businesses $900 billion a year. When the government taxes and regulates, it is the poorest people who suffer as a result, because the free market is stripped of its means to produce more & better opportunities.

But still US is the western country with highest percentage of people living in poverty, funny enough it's also the country with lowest taxes.

No it isn't the country with the lowest taxes.

which western country has lower taxes? (except for those mini-states)

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: chess9
Actually, we are all Socialists. Do you like your Fire Department and Police Department? How about those roads you think you should be able to drive 100 mph on? Do you want them repaired? Will you be repairing the roads in your neighborhood? Will you be fighting the next neighborhood fire?

That's exactly what Dissipate is supporting.

He will be there to help fight your fire if you pay him the market value of him helping

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Wow... that's some drivel. Did you know the author managed to write well over 100 pages of this thing without mentioning externalities, and claims that there is no such thing as a monopoly?

For a critique of the concept of monopolies read chapter 10 of Man, Economy & State. For a critique of the externalities doctrine go to page 96 of Capitalism

Pick and choose... pick and choose... pick and choose. This is no more a 'pure' capitalism than my coffee is pure water. Alrighty then, from Chapter 10:

"For this ?in­elasticity? is simply a label for a situation in which consumers spend more money on a good at a higher than at a lower price. If the consumers were really opposed to the cartel action, and if the resulting exchanges really hurt them, they would boycott the ?monopolistic? firm or firms, they would lower their pur­chasing so that the demand curve became elastic, and the firm would be forced to increase its production and reduce its price again."

Please go read the definition of 'fallacy of composition'. Your hero is here claiming that consumers act as a body by spending more money in the face of correctly implemented monopoly pricing. This is patently false: some consumers purchase less (some may purchase as much if their demand for the good in the relevent price range is entirely inelatsic; think buying gas for your car; price is irrelevant within reason) than at the competitive price of the good, albeit at a higher price; others purchase much less, or drop out of the market entirely. Yet your hero commits the composition fallacy by treating the entire population as a single entity, which spends more in the face of a higher price, and has the power to do otherwise. This would require agents who buy at the high price to refuse to buy goods at a price which they are willing to spend, in order to bring about betterment for other people, and is fundamentally opposite to the tenets of capitalism. IF people acted in this way, your hero would label them as behaving irrationaly!

Socialistic action is not possible under pure capitalism, therefore this argument against monopoly fails completely. Calling this 'proof' disingenuous would be an insult to liars everywhere. And this is without touching the jump back and forth between efficiency arguments and moral ones; they aren't tied through any necessary relationship, and this partcular argument gets even worse for you when you examine the efficiency of monopolies.

Read the section on consumer sovereignty & illusion of monopoly price. It is impossible to differentiate between a "monopoly price" and a non-monopoly price. I challenge anyone to show me what they believe is a monopoly price, and prove that it is one, or even conversely that a particular price is "competitive." See Pg. 687 in Man, Economy & State.

"It will be argued that, contrary to much that has been written in the economics literature on
monopoly and public goods, neither problem exists or, if they did exist, would still not suffice in any meaningful sense to prove any economic deficiency in a pure market system. Rather, a capitalist order always, without exception and necessarily so, provides in the most efficient way for the most urgent wants of voluntary consumers, including the areas of police and the courts. With this constructive task completed, the argument will have been brought full circle, and the demolition of the intellectual credibility of socialism, morally and economically, should be complete."

They somehow fail to realize that the capitalism they espouse is no more 'pure' than it is practical. It's simply an economic version of 'take as much as you can defend'.

In capitalism you cannot take, you must produce. Defense would simply be a part of the market, i.e. security firms would replace police departments. There is nothing about the theory of division of labor which precludes private police forces.

What's the market value of me not taking everything you own by force? Don't tell me you will hire private security to stop me - all I need to do is get ahead of you once and I can afford to stay ahead of you forever.

You would not have the means to take everything I have by force anymore than you do now, if there were not a state to stop you. Why? Because the majority of the population, being for the most part civilized human beings would not allow it. The idea that the government is the only thing keeping us from chaos is an utter myth, and further perpetuates the fact that the existence of the government is largely based on the fears of an ignorant population.

In pure capitalism, all affected parties are involved in the process of contracts, including such nebulous ones as 'the environment', 'the future', and more obvious ones like 'your neighbors'. In short, if capitalism is to function efficiently, it needs an infinite set of markets, all agents need standing in all contracts, and no trading can happen until everyone has chosen their consumption for this 'period' and all 'future' periods. And even then it still doens't work!

Private courts and arbitration bodies would exist under capitalism. Please explain how it wouldn't work, people choose their consumption everyday, it is called human action.

How does this handle the externalities you exert on people and non-human agents outside the bounds of your private courts. See above: what stops me from trampling all over you if I can more affor 'justice' than you can? This is yet more bunk.

HuH? Businessmen would choose their own private arbitration firms in all the contracts that they sign. Vaguely like aribitration agreements today. Hence, arbitration firms would compete with each other but not against each other. In each dispute only one firm would be involved.

BTW pure capitalism and pure socialism both have excellent results on paper. And neither could ever be implemented because they both assume the cost and time involved in processing information is zero. Which is obviously not true.

Wrong. Socialism has horrible results on paper. Ludwig von Mises eviscerated socialism on paper decades ago, and successfully predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. Where does socialism fail miserably on paper? Calculation. Under a system that lacks private ownership and markets, the price of any particular good cannot be accurately determined. How can anyone know what anything is worth if there is no market for it? Well, one communist, when asked this question said: "We look at how long the lines are." :disgust:

The price of any good cannot be accurately determined under capitalism either. For this to happen you need to have markets for all goods, including all future goods. And you can't allow trading to take place until all consumers (including ones who are born yet) have had their chance to make all their decisions for all periods based on the perfectly symetrical information available to, and understood by, everyone.

This is nonesense. Free markets may not have perfect information (whatever that is), but they have adequate information. In fact, in the free market information is a commodity itself, bought and sold to maximize efficiency of allocation of resources. Every consumer and business can purchase as much information as they deem necessary, just like any other good or service. Under communism no information exists, and no market signals exist, because they cannot. I'll take adequate information over no information anytime.

Good try on the USSR - predicting the downfall of a non-socialist country due to the real world effects of not implementing pure socialism. I'll give him this much: he's able to correctly conclude that economics based on ideology is pretty much doomed to fail. Makes one appreciate the surprising effectiveness of the hypocrisy and confusion inherent in the Western market/socialism jumble, doesn't it?

Please tell me then, what is pure socialism? Then explain to me how this wonderful "purely socialist" country will figure out how much of what good to produce, and how to allocate those goods. This process is highly complex in the free market alone, but when sellers are not allowed to freely interact with buyers it is going to be virtually impossible. It is no wonder that the USSR had an enormous bureaucracy in order to attempt to perform this task, and yet still failed.

I can't believe someone took the time to write this - it's going on my wall of shame.

Haha, ok.

At least we agree on something.[/quote]

 

[LunarRay]

Mockery,

This is one of the primary factors I was talking about when I referred to stifling the incentive to be successful. The total amount of money that you are being taxed does matter to most people, especially when they are considering the option of falling into a higher tax bracket or not (as in making more money).
The new bracket affects the marginal taxable income not the base upon which it is added to with the exception of those who lose some benefit by virtue of passing over a threshold.

For instance, pretend that a rich business tycoon is pondering the idea of opening up another shop, or creating a new chain of stores. If he knows that this event could potentially land him into a progressively higher tax bracket, he may reconsider pursuing this path.
Business decisions are based on the after tax results. It used to be the IRR or the Discounted Cash Flow. I prefer looking at a Cash Flow Analysis (after tax and interest) for a five year period. And see how long based on my hard assumptions it takes to pay back what ever investment I may have to make, if any.

I know first hand that I would, especially if my year end figures proved to be less beneficial (or even the same). This is why many Americans would rather opt for making twenty grand under the table (illegitimately) than a few thousands more that is actually being declared for taxes.

Similar principles apply in my scenario, except on an increasingly amplified scale. As with most economic events, our market, and more importantly the people within it, follows trends created by incentive. If you take away this incentive to accomplish more (through increasingly stronger taxation) you also risk the chance of taking away one of our society?s most crucial benefactors (the motivation to do better).

This is just one of many perspectives that could be shined onto this discussion.

The focus of my point is to do with looking at the various real issues. If a professional can purchase 3 apples, a particular car, a house in a particular area and etc. and there are all sorts of fiscal policy changes the key to look at is whether or not that same professional can achieve the same acquisitions after as he could before those fiscal policy changes and if the other folks in the focus can as well or can they do better and the first professional cannot. (Ceteris Paribus)

Edit: I forgot to mention that the folks in the upper levels will increase to the folks who acquire their goods or services the price they pay until they do reach that equilibrium with the historical norm and variance between them and the other 'classes'.

 

[rextilleon]

I repeat--there laissez-faire capitalism is Utopian and only existed for a few years during the Industrial Revolution in England---So many people were displaced and so few had work that the government had to step in and create the Poor Houses etc made famous by Dickens. My friends, we live in a mixed-economy for good reason. By the way, although most of you right wingers dont like to admit it--capitalism has a bunch of built in contradictions--For instance, there is a tendency in mature capitalist system for their to be accumulation of wealth and control in the hands of fewer and fewer people. We can see this with the death of small retailers in the US and elsewhere. There are laws on the books that would prohbit much of this accumulation of power but the government is so dependent on the power elite that they are seldom enforced.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Tax rate is irrelevent when large corporations hide what they make through legal and illegal means and end up paying half the tax they owe. There is a tax loophole for almost every activity you could possibly be involved in. Without a flat tax, the rate is really irrelevent.

Everytime you turn around some corporation is either demanding their tax be reduced or they are leaving, or demanding relief from tax if a community wants them to move in. Somehow I doubt if they city or the state would lower taxes for me If I threatened to move out. Hee Hee.

The government could survive on 10% if everyone paid it.

10% of what? Gross Income tax? Or after deductions and exemptions... How about sources of money that arn't income, complicated stuff like passive income (rents), capital gains, offshore investments etc which present daunting problems with valuation and timing?

It could work with 10% every time money changes hands, sorta a "exchange tax", how to deal with people who change investments daily, like stock market players?

 

[Mockery]

Originally posted by: rextilleon
I repeat--there laissez-faire capitalism is Utopian and only existed for a few years during the Industrial Revolution in England---So many people were displaced and so few had work that the government had to step in and create the Poor Houses etc made famous by Dickens. My friends, we live in a mixed-economy for good reason. By the way, although most of you right wingers dont like to admit it--capitalism has a bunch of built in contradictions--For instance, there is a tendency in mature capitalist system for their to be accumulation of wealth and control in the hands of fewer and fewer people. We can see this with the death of small retailers in the US and elsewhere. There are laws on the books that would prohbit much of this accumulation of power but the government is so dependent on the power elite that they are seldom enforced.

I think that?s a valid analysis. Both Capitalism and Socialism have inherent flaws that make them unrealistic in a pure form. Very few people I have met will argue that either one of these systems is a save all answer. Instead, it?s more of a question of how much of each particular system should be implemented into our society. It?s a deliberation of compromise between the two.

It?s my personal belief that we should stick with a more laissez-faire approach to handling economics than one of increasing government intervention (much like is found elsewhere in the world).

Of course this boils into a subjective analysis in the end, much like every discussion in here.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Mockery

Originally posted by: rextilleon
I repeat--there laissez-faire capitalism is Utopian and only existed for a few years during the Industrial Revolution in England---So many people were displaced and so few had work that the government had to step in and create the Poor Houses etc made famous by Dickens. My friends, we live in a mixed-economy for good reason. By the way, although most of you right wingers dont like to admit it--capitalism has a bunch of built in contradictions--For instance, there is a tendency in mature capitalist system for their to be accumulation of wealth and control in the hands of fewer and fewer people. We can see this with the death of small retailers in the US and elsewhere. There are laws on the books that would prohbit much of this accumulation of power but the government is so dependent on the power elite that they are seldom enforced.

I think that?s a valid analysis. Both Capitalism and Socialism have inherent flaws that make them unrealistic in a pure form. Very few people I have met will argue that either one of these systems is a save all answer. Instead, it?s more of a question of how much of each particular system should be implemented into our society. It?s a deliberation of compromise between the two.

It?s my personal belief that we should stick with a more laissez-faire approach to handling economics than one of increasing government intervention (much like is found elsewhere in the world).

Of course this boils into a subjective analysis in the end, much like every discussion in here.

Spot on.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Dissipate


Read the section on consumer sovereignty & illusion of monopoly price. It is impossible to differentiate between a "monopoly price" and a non-monopoly price. I challenge anyone to show me what they believe is a monopoly price, and prove that it is one, or even conversely that a particular price is "competitive." See Pg. 687 in Man, Economy & State.

I did. And that's what I'm responding to. I challenge you to show that all consumers would not be better off under the competitive price than the monopoly price, and that the dead-weight loss caused by inefficient production is equal to zero (which is the case when a monopolist can implement perfect pricing, to usurp all consumer surplus, without inefficiency).

You would not have the means to take everything I have by force anymore than you do now, if there were not a state to stop you. Why? Because the majority of the population, being for the most part civilized human beings would not allow it. The idea that the government is the only thing keeping us from chaos is an utter myth, and further perpetuates the fact that the existence of the government is largely based on the fears of an ignorant population.

This statement is completely false. I quite possibly have the means to take everything you own by force NOW, what I don't have is the ability to keep it, because there is a state to stop me. The second half of your statement assumes collective action from individually maximizing agents: meet the free-rider, and shake his hand please. I'll be happy to explain it in detail if that is yet another aspect of market economics that you've neglected to educate yourself about until now.

I would suggest that it is in fact the ignorant who perpetuate the myth that the whole world could function better without government. But ignorant or not, we had 'no government' for thousands of years, and guess what? The first folk to get together and create an administrative structure, won.

HuH? Businessmen would choose their own private arbitration firms in all the contracts that they sign. Vaguely like aribitration agreements today. Hence, arbitration firms would compete with each other but not against each other. In each dispute only one firm would be involved.

FUD!!!!

You ignored the entire thrust of the argument, which is that affected third parties, including nebulous ones cannot be represented under your version of capitalism. Since you completely failed to make an argument, I'll just rest on my previous one for the moment. I want to get this posted before the forum shutdown today.

This is nonesense. Free markets may not have perfect information (whatever that is), but they have adequate information. In fact, in the free market information is a commodity itself, bought and sold to maximize efficiency of allocation of resources. Every consumer and business can purchase as much information as they deem necessary, just like any other good or service. Under communism no information exists, and no market signals exist, because they cannot. I'll take adequate information over no information anytime.

1. I'm not espousing socialism, so we'll just ignore that bit as it's a red herring.
2. Free markets require information about those markets to be available to everyone, or else rational decisions cannot be made.
3. There is no rational method of judging the value of information that you do not yet possess. So tell me how, exactly, I could decide rationally how much to purchase. (A second problem is that most valuable information is given away for free, to the close friends of the folk who have it, and on the condition that it be kept private. I'll let you off on this one for the moment if you can tell me how to calculate the marginal value of information you don't already have!)

Please tell me then, what is pure socialism? Then explain to me how this wonderful "purely socialist" country will figure out how much of what good to produce, and how to allocate those goods. This process is highly complex in the free market alone, but when sellers are not allowed to freely interact with buyers it is going to be virtually impossible. It is no wonder that the USSR had an enormous bureaucracy in order to attempt to perform this task, and yet still failed.

Pure socialism, which I'm not not supporting at all, relies on an assumption that there is no cost to processing information. You're about to tell me that without markets you can't determine preferences; so I suggest a good red of some Jon Elster, and a few rational choice theory/behaviour psychologists to give you an idea of how irrational people's preferences are under many circumstances.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Mockery

Originally posted by: rextilleon
I repeat--there laissez-faire capitalism is Utopian and only existed for a few years during the Industrial Revolution in England---So many people were displaced and so few had work that the government had to step in and create the Poor Houses etc made famous by Dickens. My friends, we live in a mixed-economy for good reason. By the way, although most of you right wingers dont like to admit it--capitalism has a bunch of built in contradictions--For instance, there is a tendency in mature capitalist system for their to be accumulation of wealth and control in the hands of fewer and fewer people. We can see this with the death of small retailers in the US and elsewhere. There are laws on the books that would prohbit much of this accumulation of power but the government is so dependent on the power elite that they are seldom enforced.

I think that?s a valid analysis. Both Capitalism and Socialism have inherent flaws that make them unrealistic in a pure form. Very few people I have met will argue that either one of these systems is a save all answer. Instead, it?s more of a question of how much of each particular system should be implemented into our society. It?s a deliberation of compromise between the two.

It?s my personal belief that we should stick with a more laissez-faire approach to handling economics than one of increasing government intervention (much like is found elsewhere in the world).

Of course this boils into a subjective analysis in the end, much like every discussion in here.

Spot on.

I agree - nice post rextilleon

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Dissipate</b></i><BR><BR><BR><b>Read the section on consumer sovereignty &amp; illusion of monopoly price. It is impossible to differentiate between a "monopoly price" and a non-monopoly price. I challenge anyone to show me what they believe is a monopoly price, and prove that it is one, or even conversely that a particular price is "competitive." See Pg. 687 in Man, Economy &amp; State.</b> <hr></blockquote><BR><BR>I did. And that's what I'm responding to. I challenge you to show that all consumers would not be better off under the competitive price than the monopoly price, and that the dead-weight loss caused by inefficient production is equal to zero (which is the case when a monopolist can implement perfect pricing, to usurp all consumer surplus, without inefficiency). <BR><BR><blockquote>quote:
<hr><b>You would not have the means to take everything I have by force anymore than you do now, if there were not a state to stop you. Why? Because the majority of the population, being for the most part civilized human beings would not allow it. The idea that the government is the only thing keeping us from chaos is an utter myth, and further perpetuates the fact that the existence of the government is largely based on the fears of an ignorant population.</b><hr></blockquote><BR><BR>This statement is completely false. I quite possibly have the means to take everything you own by force NOW, what I don't have is the ability to keep it, because there is a state to stop me. The second half of your statement assumes collective action from individually maximizing agents: meet the <i>free-rider</i>, and shake his hand please. I'll be happy to explain it in detail if that is yet another aspect of market economics that you've neglected to educate yourself about until now. <BR><BR>I would suggest that it is in fact the ignorant who perpetuate the myth that the whole world could function better without government. But ignorant or not, we had 'no government' for thousands of years, and guess what? The first folk to get together and create an administrative structure, won.<BR><BR><blockquote>quote:
<hr><b>HuH? Businessmen would choose their own private arbitration firms in all the contracts that they sign. Vaguely like aribitration agreements today. Hence, arbitration firms would compete with each other but not against each other. In each dispute only one firm would be involved.</b><hr></blockquote><BR><BR>FUD!!!!<BR><BR>You ignored the entire thrust of the argument, which is that affected third parties, including nebulous ones cannot be represented under your version of capitalism. Since you completely failed to make an argument, I'll just rest on my previous one for the moment. I want to get this posted before the forum shutdown today.<BR><BR><blockquote>quote:
<hr><b>This is nonesense. Free markets may not have perfect information (whatever that is), but they have adequate information. In fact, in the free market information is a commodity itself, bought and sold to maximize efficiency of allocation of resources. Every consumer and business can purchase as much information as they deem necessary, just like any other good or service. Under communism no information exists, and no market signals exist, because they cannot. I'll take adequate information over no information anytime.</b><hr></blockquote><BR><BR>1. I'm not espousing socialism, so we'll just ignore that bit as it's a red herring. <BR>2. Free markets require information about those markets to be available to everyone, or else rational decisions cannot be made. <BR>3. There is no rational method of judging the value of information that you do not yet possess. So tell me how, exactly, I could decide rationally how much to purchase. (A second problem is that most valuable information is given away for free, to the close friends of the folk who have it, and on the condition that it be kept private. I'll let you off on this one for the moment if you can tell me how to calculate the marginal value of information you don't already have!)<BR><BR><blockquote>quote:
<hr><b>Please tell me then, what is pure socialism? Then explain to me how this wonderful "purely socialist" country will figure out how much of what good to produce, and how to allocate those goods. This process is highly complex in the free market alone, but when sellers are not allowed to freely interact with buyers it is going to be virtually impossible. It is no wonder that the USSR had an enormous bureaucracy in order to attempt to perform this task, and yet still failed.</b><hr></blockquote><BR>Pure socialism, which I'm not not supporting at all, relies on an assumption that there is no cost to processing information. You're about to tell me that without markets you can't determine preferences; so I suggest a good red of some Jon Elster, and a few rational choice theory/behaviour psychologists to give you an idea of how irrational people's preferences are under many circumstances.

Folks, this is what happens when you attempt to reply to a completely incoherent and virtually meaningless post, more incoherence. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Steeplerot]

WTF AT forums are borked. All the tags are showing....?

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: ntdz
the top bracket is 30%??? YEAH RIGHT...<BR><BR>The Federal Tax is 35% for the top bracket (42% under Clinton and 70% under Jimmy Carter). That might not seem like much, but add on state tax (another 10% in most states like California), Sales tax, gas tax, property tax, and before Bush the dividend tax and death tax. Pretty much everything we do or spend gets taxed. By the time its all said and done, the top bracket is easily paying 60-65% of their income to the govt. If that aint socialist then i dont know what is...<BR><BR>Edit: Oh, and btw, the top bracket starts at $200,000, not a few million. $200,000 nowadays really isnt rich, its just upper middle income.

Move out to my neck of the woods and $200,00/yr will put you in the best neighborhood in town easily.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
. The government is a horribly inefficient medium of compassion. Good private charities are much better if you wish to try to help others.<BR><BR>2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners.

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

The free market we have isn't free. As a farmer, can I sell my grain directly to Japan? No, there are laws against it. If you want to talk free market, then let's get a free market, because we sure don't have one in this country. It's just more BS Reaganomics. The only thing reduction of taxes on the rich helps is the rich and they pracitce the Golden Rule. Those with the gold, rule.

You'd try to sell snake oil to a snake.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>Dissipate</b></i>
. The government is a horribly inefficient medium of compassion. Good private charities are much better if you wish to try to help others.<BR><BR>2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners.<hr></blockquote>

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

The free market we have isn't free. As a farmer, can I sell my grain directly to Japan? No, there are laws against it. If you want to talk free market, then let's get a free market, because we sure don't have one in this country. It's just more BS Reaganomics. The only thing reduction of taxes on the rich helps is the rich and they pracitce the Golden Rule. Those with the gold, rule.

You'd try to sell snake oil to a snake.

I agree. What I mean by "free market" is the portion of the mixed economy which consists of legitimate industries. This is in contrast to the what I call the "blood sucking" industries. These industries are created by government regulation, essentially. For instance, tax attorneys/preparers are part of a "blood sucking" industry. Of course classification of a particulary industry as being legitmate or bloodsucking is not always cut and dry, since some industries may be both. Keep in mind that this is not meant to degrade people in these industries, since they often times help their customers fight bureaucracy, but nontheless these industries exist artificially and they extract wealth from the rest of the economy.

I disagree that reduction of taxes on the rich only benefit the rich. I haven't heard of any rich person who just sits on some enormous hoard of cash, they invest it in other enterprises. These enterprises are the most efficient anti-poverty "mechanisms." They create jobs all the way from janitor up to CEO. Take away the capital of the rich and you will see less opportunity for everyone, period. On top of that you will witness an expansion of interventionist bureaucracy. It is a major double whammy.

In order for new opportunities to be created a critical mass of investment capital must be created. In order for this critical mass to come about some people must be allowed to become rich. Hence, I would much rather have a few individuals with a lot of capital then a large amount of individuals with just a small quantity each of this capital. For the reasons I stated above, the rich will be enabled to create companies and jobs, while the wage earners would just spend the capital on everyday expenses, no new jobs would be created. For instance, let's say a man was worth $1 million. In which scenario would a new business be likely to start? A. The man gets to keep his $1 million. B. The $1 million is taxed away and spent by some government agency C. $1 is given to 1 million poor people. Keep in mind, in scenario B, government jobs might be created, but these jobs have no measureable value to the free market, and so this is merely a wealth transfer.

 

[Kibbo]

Dissipate,

Charlie's posts were far from incoherent.

Until you fully address the questions of Monopolistic inefficiency, free riders, the sub-optimal provision of public goods, and the lack of property rights that lead to externalities, you will continue to seem to be running away from him. Note that none of your pretty links directly addressed those points.

Also, you do not properly address how private property rights would be protected in a perfectly private world. What would keep me from building up a larger "security force" and taking your land?

 

[Mockery]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

The free market we have isn't free. As a farmer, can I sell my grain directly to Japan? No, there are laws against it. If you want to talk free market, then let's get a free market, because we sure don't have one in this country. It's just more BS Reaganomics. The only thing reduction of taxes on the rich helps is the rich and they pracitce the Golden Rule. Those with the gold, rule.

You'd try to sell snake oil to a snake.

Can you emphasize what you mean by BS Reaganomics? As someone who takes an interest in the study of economics, mainly Marco-Econ, I have found that a lot of the Reagan era policies to have been beneficial for this economy.

While some of them are indeed questionable and lacking cause and effect, I?d hardly classify them as being entirely BS.

Perhaps you can elaborate for me. thanks

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Mockery
<blockquote>quote:
<hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>1EZduzit</b></i>
<blockquote>quote:
<hr>The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

The free market we have isn't free. As a farmer, can I sell my grain directly to Japan? No, there are laws against it. If you want to talk free market, then let's get a free market, because we sure don't have one in this country. <b>It's just more BS Reaganomics.</b> The only thing reduction of taxes on the rich helps is the rich and they pracitce the Golden Rule. Those with the gold, rule.

You'd try to sell snake oil to a snake.

<hr></blockquote>

Can you emphasize what you mean by BS Reaganomics? As someone who takes an interest in the study of economics, mainly Marco-Econ, I have found that a lot of the Reagan era policies to have been beneficial for this economy.

While some of them are indeed questionable and lacking cause and effect, I?d hardly classify them as being entirely BS.

Perhaps you can elaborate for me. thanks

I haven't studied economics. I got married and went to work in 1978. I've only lived Reagonomics for 26 years, so I guess I'm not "smart" enough to know what I'm talking about. Let me give you examples of what I think are failed Reaganomic policies.

Why do some people make enough money to afford to invest $20,000 or more a year as compared to the people who don't even make enough money to invest. They are all working full time and the lower class are putting in more hours. I'm sure you will try to justify that by "supply and demand" and the "trickle down theroy". The truth is Reaganomics has failed.

In my opinion, a "trickle up" theroy is just as valid as a "trickle down" theroy. Pay the people a living wage and they will spend the money, and then it will "trickle up" making money for the rich investors who can then reinvest it to create moe jobs.

Cutting budgets and personal of goverment agencies that then allowed the S &amp; L rip off, Enron, WorldCom, etc., etc., etc. Instead of doing with less people perhaps they should make less money or those people should have been working harder? Who knows how many people Reaqanomics faild there?

Breaking the unions and allowing big business to take advantage of their workers. Not only do they work more hours to make a living, their standard of living has been going down year after year. The upper classes have never had it so good and most of the working class is struggling. Reaganomics has failed again.

I've worked hard all my life, and all I heard from Reaganomic people was that we had to cut goverment spending because it was causing inflation and it was a "hidden" tax. GWB took office with a projected surplus, cut taxes, ran the deficit up to record levels ( the biggest ever to date) and the economy is still struggling. Where did all that money go?? It sure doesn't seem to be helping the economy. That is the biggest reason i cite that Reaganomics has failed.

IMO, the economy is like a well, it can only put out so much water, it doesn't matter how fast you run the pump. If you need more water, the dig another bigger well. People are working and working hard, yet an economy with the highest GNP in history can't provide enough income to the working class to stimulate the economy?? On top of that, there are more 2 income families contributing to the GNP then ever in history. To me it is clear that Reaganomics has failed miserably.

It's my believe that the richest people and corporations are sitting on all that money because they are afraid of a stock market crash. When and if it does crash then they will "cherry pick" what they want to invest in. A crash will actually help those people get even richer, it could be the best thing that ever happened to them. I believe the only way to avoid this is to get the money into the pockets of the people who will actually will spend it into the economy. It will cause inflation, but it is better then the alternative.

People say the stock market can't crash because of all the saftey checks built into it. To then I say, "Famous last words".

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Mockery

Originally posted by: rextilleon<BR>I repeat--there laissez-faire capitalism is Utopian and only existed for a few years during the Industrial Revolution in England---So many people were displaced and so few had work that the government had to step in and create the Poor Houses etc made famous by Dickens. My friends, we live in a mixed-economy for good reason. By the way, although most of you right wingers dont like to admit it--capitalism has a bunch of built in contradictions--For instance, there is a tendency in mature capitalist system for their to be accumulation of wealth and control in the hands of fewer and fewer people. We can see this with the death of small retailers in the US and elsewhere. There are laws on the books that would prohbit much of this accumulation of power but the government is so dependent on the power elite that they are seldom enforced.

<BR><BR>I think that?s a valid analysis. Both Capitalism and Socialism have inherent flaws that make them unrealistic in a pure form. Very few people I have met will argue that either one of these systems is a save all answer. Instead, it?s more of a question of how much of each particular system should be implemented into our society. It?s a deliberation of compromise between the two.<BR><BR>It?s my personal belief that we should stick with a more laissez-faire approach to handling economics than one of increasing government intervention (much like is found elsewhere in the world).<BR><BR>Of course this boils into a subjective analysis in the end, much like every discussion in here.

Good point, and to take it further, there's a lot more to economics than the one-dimensional picture of percent of government control in your economy. The particular controls matter even more in many cases, such as the US's peculiar decision to afford corporations personhood status.

 

[Mockery]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
I haven't studied economics. I got married and went to work in 1978. I've only lived Reagonomics for 26 years, so I guess I'm not "smart" enough to know what I'm talking about. Let me give you examples of what I think are failed Reaganomic policies.

I never meant to imply any such thing. I was just asking your opinion on the subject, since I could see that you had strong convictions about it.

I will respond to the rest of your stuff the best I can tomorrow afternoon, when I get some more time.

And to note: I am usually a pretty easy going individual, and don?t usually set out to be derogatory towards anybody (unless I?m in an extremely rare mood). I am always open to seeing a new perspective.

That's all I was looking for.

cheers

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Kibbo
Dissipate,

Charlie's posts were far from incoherent.

Until you fully address the questions of Monopolistic inefficiency, free riders, the sub-optimal provision of public goods, and the lack of property rights that lead to externalities, you will continue to seem to be running away from him. Note that none of your pretty links directly addressed those points.

Also, you do not properly address how private property rights would be protected in a perfectly private world. What would keep me from building up a larger "security force" and taking your land?

Hmm, ok. Let's see:

The price of any good cannot be accurately determined under capitalism either. For this to happen you need to have markets for all goods, including all future goods. And you can't allow trading to take place until all consumers (including ones who are born yet) have had their chance to make all their decisions for all periods based on the perfectly symetrical information available to, and understood by, everyone.

Good try on the USSR - predicting the downfall of a non-socialist country due to the real world effects of not implementing pure socialism. I'll give him this much: he's able to correctly conclude that economics based on ideology is pretty much doomed to fail. Makes one appreciate the surprising effectiveness of the hypocrisy and confusion inherent in the Western market/socialism jumble, doesn't it?

What the hell is he talking about? I thought he was talking about the fact that capitalism has imperfect information, then when I addressed that issue he had some other incoherent response. I'm sorry Kibbo, I understand that you are trying to defend one of your fellow comrade socialist buddies, but if you do that here you are as nutty as he is. Furthermore, Austrians cover every single one of those issues throughout their publications. Mises.org has them all in their online study guide, look them up if you want.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Dissipate
. The government is a horribly inefficient medium of compassion. Good private charities are much better if you wish to try to help others.<BR><BR>2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners.

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

Interestingly, Medicare has a much lower overhead (6%) than most HMOs, whose overheads typically range between 10-20%.

Government is not always the right answer, but neither is it always the wrong answer.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Dissipate
. The government is a horribly inefficient medium of compassion. Good private charities are much better if you wish to try to help others.<BR><BR>2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners.

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

Interestingly, Medicare has a much lower overhead (6%) than most HMOs, whose overheads typically range between 10-20%.

Government is not always the right answer, but neither is it always the wrong answer.

You are comparing a government program to an industry that has heavy government regulation, which is an invalid comparison.

The government "provides" important services, such as roads and security. But the truth of the matter is that there is no government service that could not be taken over by the private sector, and much more efficiently I might add. So I would have to disagree, the government is always the wrong answer.

More on this concept here: Bureaucracy

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: Dissipate
. The government is a horribly inefficient medium of compassion. Good private charities are much better if you wish to try to help others.<BR><BR>2. The free market is actually the most efficient anti-poverty program ever created. For this reason reduction of taxes on the "rich" actually benefit wage earners.

The goverment is a horrilby ineffecient medium of anything. Welfare, defnese, admisistration, you name it. On top of that, things have gotten so bad that it is way past what private charities would be able to handle.

Interestingly, Medicare has a much lower overhead (6%) than most HMOs, whose overheads typically range between 10-20%.

Government is not always the right answer, but neither is it always the wrong answer.

You are comparing a government program to an industry that has heavy government regulation, which is an invalid comparison.

The government "provides" important services, such as roads and security. But the truth of the matter is that there is no government service that could not be taken over by the private sector, and much more efficiently I might add. So I would have to disagree, the government is always the wrong answer.

More on this concept here: Bureaucracy

I disagree that the comparison is invalid, but more importantly, it's important to note that bureaucracy is by no means a monopoly of the public sector. I've worked and consulted in enough Fortune 100 companies to see plenty of bureaucracy, and yes, some private enterprises have more bureaucracy than some public entities.