2

8/22/2006 10:01:44 AM

its only the socialist liberals that think its wrong...they would rather punish the people that work hard and reward the people who do jack shit

8/22/2006 10:48:57 AM

Quote :

"Either way Kris, it is true, we don't have that many historical examples to draw"

Oh, I know, and the few we do have are, as you've admitted, far too complicated for us to attempt to fully explain. This is why I suggest instead of stabbing at random meaningless correlations, you instead explain to me the mechnics of how you think this work, and exactly why it must always play out in this manner.

I've read several books that have said several conflicting things on this subject. I haven't read this book IIRC, but most likely it said similar things to some of the others I read which directly conflicted with others I've read.

Quote :

"State run entities tend to be overmanned (wasting labor resources) and waste inputs (usually because they get favorable regulatory treatment). They are also bad at maximizing efficiency with labor and inputs because they usually under invest in capital. (Economist, Aug 2006)"

Care to explain the school system here in america? It would seem to follow the exact opposite.

Quote :

"You must have a scale to put things in perspective"

No you don't.

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"Totalitarian Dictatorship (Stalinist Russia) worked fine, the Soviet Union worked good, a Mixed Economy works better, and a free-enterprise economy works best."

I'll point out once agian you've made another bold and unsupported claim. The fact is that capitalism suffers from several serious flaws and innefficentcies, I've went into these several times, but I can critique capitalism once more if you'd like.

8/22/2006 2:50:03 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Perhaps you could describe to me the abstract of a bill congress could pass that would fix these problems without causing far worse problems?"

Wouldn't that be like an inmate asking the warden to treat the prisoners better?

Ultimately, acts of congress won't fix these problems. They might work as a nice conjunctive effort, along with social change done on an individual level, but I doubt that by itself any bill passed by Congress will even address the root causes of any problem--practically ever.

8/22/2006 2:59:42 PM

Quote :

"Care to explain the school system here in america? It would seem to follow the exact opposite."

Irrelevant, that is not a revenue run enterprise, but by comparison to Private Schools our public schools are overmanaged (some school systems employ more administrators than they do teachers).

Are you seriously offering up America's school system as an example of a well run state monopoly?

Quote :

"The fact is that capitalism suffers from several serious flaws and innefficentcies, I've went into these several times, but I can critique capitalism once more if you'd like."

I know, and you love harping on them. They are serious flaws and mankind suffers from them and will probably always suffer from them. But the flaws found in a government planned economy are far worse. Of course, it is a preference: I am willing to sacrifice economic stability for economic advancement. Especially when one looks at todays version of free-enterprise: Recessions are rare and shallow, productivity growth is lavish (4% a motherfucking year!)

So, Gamecat, your solution is to launch a campaign of rebellion to overthrow the U.S. government and replace it with... What? Anarchy? The people will never stand for it (every single American with a gun will be after you, including me.)

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 3:13 PM. Reason : ^]

8/22/2006 3:10:48 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: So, Gamecat, your solution is to launch a campaign of rebellion to overthrow the U.S. government and replace it with... What?"

Why do you think I'd expect a top down approach to be effective?

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 3:20 PM. Reason : .]

8/22/2006 3:19:58 PM

^ Ok, so you are not going to change the system from the outside (violence), you are not going to change the system from the inside (political process), what exactly is left?

The purpose of grass roots efforts is to lead to one of these two processes, either a violent rebellion or a political shift, neither of which you seek, so it sounds like you hate the system but pray to God that none of it changes...

8/22/2006 5:04:41 PM

Quote :

"Are you seriously offering up America's school system as an example of a well run state monopoly?"

You said state entities.

Quote :

"They are serious flaws and mankind suffers from them and will probably always suffer from them."

You can't really say we probably will always suffer from them or we always won't. But regardless, no having solved a problem yet does not imply inability to have solved the problem in the past, present, or future.

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"But the flaws found in a government planned economy are far worse."

How many times have I asked you to prove this now? You can't prove a claim that bold, so stop making it.

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"I am willing to sacrifice economic stability for economic advancement."

A mixed market, or even fully socialized government can advance similarly without the unneccesary instability or wealth gap. What do you believe this magical mechanism, that you've yet to really explain, is? What does free enterprise have that causes it "advance" faster? Is it simply because you have beliefs similar to salisburyboy's, simply replace "jewish zionists" with "government intervention"?

Quote :

"Especially when one looks at todays version of free-enterprise: Recessions are rare and shallow, productivity growth is lavish"

Today's version is a mixed market. It is Keynes, not Smith, that would be smiling about modern economics.

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 5:23 PM. Reason : ]

8/22/2006 5:23:02 PM

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Ok, so you are not going to change the system from the outside (violence), you are not going to change the system from the inside (political process), what exactly is left?"

When you present the issue as a false dichotomy, you're bound to get a stupid answer.

Let's see you explain instead how I've suggested political process wouldn't work at all.

8/22/2006 5:47:06 PM

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"A mixed market, or even fully socialized government can advance similarly without the unneccesary instability or wealth gap."

"How many times have I asked you to prove this now? You can't prove a claim that bold, so stop making it."

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"What do you believe this magical mechanism, that you've yet to really explain, is?"

First, an economic system built around a centralized political authority will always tend to make decisions based on political expediency and not on economic reality. Resources go to those firms most politically connected, not to those that can make best use of them.
Second, those with the information, plant managers, are not the same people that are rewarded for good performance. A government based economy suffers from a vast principle-agent problem, much as exists in public corporations. A free-enterprise system allows firms that successfully manage this principle-agent problem to prosper, those that fail eventually go out of business. Not to mention that a sizeable percentage of the economy does not suffer from this cronic problem: single owner companies and family businesses.
Third, a government run system tends to share out failures to the whole of society with two negative results: my bad decisions did not bankrupt me but instead made everyone in society poorer, as a result society is poorer and I do not have a strong incentive to avoid bad decisions.

There are plenty more reasons where these came from, but these are the simplest and most obvious to those with knowledge of mankinds experiments with government planning.

8/22/2006 9:35:30 PM

economists are all douchebags. case in point^.

8/22/2006 9:48:20 PM

Quote :

"How many times have I asked you to prove this now? You can't prove a claim that bold, so stop making it."

I need only reference today's first world economy to prove that mixed markets work.

Quote :

"First, an economic system built around a centralized political authority will always tend to make decisions based on political expediency and not on economic reality."

Now you'd need to explain why these two can never be connected.

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"Resources go to those firms most politically connected, not to those that can make best use of them."

Assuming this happened, the people would account for this inefficiency and hold those who engaged in this responsible.

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"A government based economy suffers from a vast principle-agent problem, much as exists in public corporations."

I'd say it happens to the same degree, so what's the problem here?

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"A free-enterprise system allows firms that successfully manage this principle-agent problem to prosper, those that fail eventually go out of business."

Employees of these government owned firms face the same problem, should they be ineffective, the government must get rid of them, or face political consequences.

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"my bad decisions did not bankrupt me but instead made everyone in society poorer, as a result society is poorer and I do not have a strong incentive to avoid bad decisions."

There is absolutely no reason that the government cannot account for this externality.

8/22/2006 10:19:24 PM

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"I need only reference today's first world economy to prove that mixed markets work."

And I only need to reference the late 19th century to prove that non-mixed markets work. Which, of course, is irrelevant, since I at no point said they did not work. Hell, many argue that the Western World has never not been a Mixed Economy (The Railroads of Pensylvania were state run, the Southern Pacific was a state monopoly, the Bank of England was a state institution, and every legislature in existance enjoyed using their position to grant state protected monopolies, what we today call corporatism).

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"Assuming this happened, the people would account for this inefficiency and hold those who engaged in this responsible."

Again, asymetric information: because the government agents are running a monopoly the people outside have no way of judging who, how, and why such inefficiencies are taking place.

Again, to all your claims, a lot of hard working well meaning people worked very hard to make the Soviet bloc economies work. They tried different incentives, they tried different hierarcies, they tried regional control, national centralization, everything including the kitchen sink and they did what I can only call the best they could, but the system still failed to advance. What makes you so certain that you are so much smarter than they were?

[Edited on August 22, 2006 at 10:55 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/22/2006 10:51:37 PM

Quote :

"And I only need to reference the late 19th century to prove that non-mixed markets work."

Well we had an economy desperately speeding towards a crash, a mass of people with a violent disdain for capitalism, and a gigantic wealth gap, I hope that isn't your idea of success.

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"Hell, many argue that the Western World has never not been a Mixed Economy"

And many can't tell their head from their ass, the modern world has been a mixed economy pretty much since the great depression.

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"because the government agents are running a monopoly the people outside have no way of judging who, how, and why such inefficiencies are taking place."

They need only hold one head responsible in order to motivate him to shape up his subordinates.

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"a lot of hard working well meaning people worked very hard to make the Soviet bloc economies work"

They tried a fairly poorly planned system a little less than 100 years ago.

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"What makes you so certain that you are so much smarter than they were?"

My intellegence relative to them has no bearing on whether or not my system would work. Judge it for it's own mechanics rather than strawmanning it with a system vaugely like mine put in place 100 years ago in a very poor country.

8/23/2006 4:20:28 PM

Quote :

"My intellegence relative to them has no bearing on whether or not my system would work. Judge it for it's own mechanics rather than strawmanning it with a system vaugely like mine put in place 100 years ago in a very poor country."

Were the 80s that long ago? Geez, I feel old.

Quote :

"They need only hold one head responsible in order to motivate him to shape up his subordinates."

You misunderstand again. If I can show you a firm that is working poorly then you can do something about it. But in a dynamic economy, advancement comes before you know it is possible. The only reason we knew the soviet system worked poorly was because we compared it to the free-enterprise system at the time. Even then, although we could see the whole economy was doing poorly there was no way of knowing what to do about it. The only people that know a factory could do better is the managers and they are not about to volunteer that information.

So we are left with a system that visibly works poorly but we have no one that we can hold at fault. The only way to know a firm is performing poorly is by comparing it to something else, either a free-firm or another government firm doing the same work in the same conditions.

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"the modern world has been a mixed economy pretty much since the great depression."

Again, some disagree with this assertion. America has always been a mixed economy, to varying degrees.

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"Well we had an economy desperately speeding towards a crash"

Again, I refer you back to another thread where I presented an historical analysis of recession frequency and severity which showed the period between 1930 and 1980 to be the most unstable economic period in American history (recessions, on average, every 5 years). Which just so happens to correspond with growing government interference in the economy. It was not until the most egregious government controls were relaxed or abolished in the late 70s and early 1980s that the economy stabilized to its historical rate of instability (little over 10 years between each recession).

If you remember which Thread that was in I'd appreciate it, Thanks!

[Edited on August 23, 2006 at 5:43 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/23/2006 5:42:01 PM

I don't have a problem with the "concentration of wealth", I have a problem with inherited wealth.

Inherited wealth and power is comparable to the development and perpetuation of an aristocracy.

If you believe in the, "American Dream", which is essentially the belief that you get ahead/ become successful through your own hard work, then inherited wealth is the bane of that ideal.

Rather than decreasing the aristocracy [estate] tax, it should be increased to near draconian levels.

Meritocracy, not aristocracy should prevail in America. George W. Bush would be pushing a broom at the local elementary school, and Paris Hilton would be waiting tables or stripping, if not for their hitting the genetic lottery.

In fact, if it were feasible, I would advocate the complete elimination of all federal income tax in favor of a 95% aristocrat tax.

8/24/2006 1:59:51 AM

^ What is the point of earning wealth if you cannot choose what to do with it? I'm not suggesting people would stop earning, just that this is a moral question. There is no rule that they give it to their children, they could give it to the poor, or their business partners, or send it overseas to avoid paying the aristocracy tax.

Besides, even if you were right and inheritance creates an aristocracy, so what? That money was given to them freely and the only ill effect created is that you just don't like their kind. Historically speaking, inheritance only guarantees wealth to the next generation, from then on they have to re-earn it and usually end up losing it on bad investments or wasteful spending.

But sometimes, like the rockefellers, each generation becomes business tycoons and use what their father taught them to create jobs and serve their customers well. If we assume that children of great businessmen are likely to become great businessmen, family business and all that, then by allowing startup capital to be given to these individuals you are benefitting society.

8/24/2006 8:34:39 AM

Quote :

"^ What is the point of earning wealth if you cannot choose what to do with it? I'm not suggesting people would stop earning, just that this is a moral question. There is no rule that they give it to their children, they could give it to the poor, or their business partners, or send it overseas to avoid paying the aristocracy tax."

You skipped the first part of my idea. That money people actually earn would not be taxed by the federal gov't. Giving to the poor would be exempt from federal tax, whereas money given to family or cronies would be subject to taxation.

I'll even go this far... each heir gets $1,000,000 that is not subject to the aristocrat tax, indexed to inflation.

Quote :

"Besides, even if you were right and inheritance creates an aristocracy, so what? That money was given to them freely and the only ill effect created is that you just don't like their kind. Historically speaking, inheritance only guarantees wealth to the next generation, from then on they have to re-earn it and usually end up losing it on bad investments or wasteful spending. But sometimes, like the rockefellers, each generation becomes business tycoons and use what their father taught them to create jobs and serve their customers well. If we assume that children of great businessmen are likely to become great businessmen, family business and all that, then by allowing startup capital to be given to these individuals you are benefitting society."

Why should Paris Hilton benefit from a huge inheritence? She didn't do anything to earn that money. Let her and people like the Menendez brothers have to make their own way in the world, just like everyone else.

They already have a huge advantage given the connections they have through their parents' business dealings. They can get a job at the company and make a 6 figure salary, paid to them through the corporation.

If they've got good business sense, then they should be capable of creating their own wealth and jobs.

[Edited on August 24, 2006 at 11:47 AM. Reason : .]

8/24/2006 11:47:21 AM

Look, I could begrudgingly accept your concept if it was possible, eliminating the income tax is worth a lot, but you aren't going to be able to eliminate the income tax. An inheritance tax is rediculously easy to avoid paying, so people don't pay it, so very little revenue is collected, so few other revenue sources are displaced.

An inheritance tax causes more far harm than it generated in revenue. Since everyone is making business decisions based on avoiding the tax and not engaging in comerce. In other words, to avoid the tax people getting old will scap their companies early to give them time to launder the money overseas (or however they're doing). So, all in all, the economy suffered, efficiency was impeeded, and you didn't raise any money. This is a bad tax, so scap it.

[Edited on August 24, 2006 at 1:55 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/24/2006 1:54:27 PM

Eliminate the tax loopholes and people can spend more time on commerce, and less on avoiding taxes.

The federal income tax can be cut and the budget shortfalls covered by increasing the estate tax. Paris Hilton didn't build a business empire, her progenitors built it.

Society needs less idle rich and more industrious individuals to make a strong economy.

8/24/2006 2:27:27 PM

so.......rich people lie.

great

8/24/2006 2:40:42 PM

so.......rich people lie.

There, fixed it.

8/24/2006 4:11:43 PM

I was really hoping for a better response from Lonesnark...

8/25/2006 3:32:55 AM

Quote :

"Eliminate the tax loopholes and people can spend more time on commerce, and less on avoiding taxes."

How do you suggest we do that? The IRS has tried for the past 100 years to close them to no avail. The estate tax has always only applied to the lazy that didn't bother avoiding the tax, the ignorant that didn't know how to, or the surprised that didn't expect to have too. The only way to close the loophole is to either stop money from leaving the country or apply the tax to overseas holdings, which is unenforceable because the government cannot enforce subpoenas against overseas banks protected with bank-secrecy laws.

8/25/2006 7:30:42 AM

the problem with concentration of wealth is that its not concentrated in my fucking bank account.

8/25/2006 9:22:11 AM

Quote :

"How do you suggest we do that? The IRS has tried for the past 100 years to close them to no avail. The estate tax has always only applied to the lazy that didn't bother avoiding the tax, the ignorant that didn't know how to, or the surprised that didn't expect to have too. The only way to close the loophole is to either stop money from leaving the country or apply the tax to overseas holdings, which is unenforceable because the government cannot enforce subpoenas against overseas banks protected with bank-secrecy laws."

That's not true. Our gov't tracks overseas monies of terrorist organizations. The gov't also has the power to freeze assets here in the US

[Edited on August 25, 2006 at 11:23 AM. Reason : ..]

8/25/2006 11:18:56 AM

Quote :

"Were the 80s that long ago?"

Doesn't matter, it's still irrelvant, you're using a strawman here and attacking a system that isn't mine.

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"If I can show you a firm that is working poorly then you can do something about it."

Not neccesarily, but I can most definately do something about a government official that does works poorly. You fail to understand that a corporation works in the same way the government does, just to a smaller scale. We citizens are stockholders in USAcorp.

Quote :

"The only reason we knew the soviet system worked poorly was because we compared it to the free-enterprise system at the time."

Rather unfairly I might add. Compare it to the US and it will certainly come short, but compare it to a similar country at a similar age, and it would have been performing quite well.

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"So we are left with a system that visibly works poorly but we have no one that we can hold at fault."

I've explained this already, we're going in circles. You hold government officials responsible.

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"Again, some disagree with this assertion. America has always been a mixed economy, to varying degrees."

And I believe you'd have to agree that the modern world has gotten progressively more mixed market.

Quote :

"Again, I refer you back to another thread where I presented an historical analysis of recession frequency and severity which showed the period between 1930 and 1980 to be the most unstable economic period in American history (recessions, on average, every 5 years)."

Link?

8/25/2006 12:36:59 PM

*ahem*

Quote :

"a corporation works in the same way the government does, just to a smaller scale. We citizens are stockholders in USAcorp."

8/25/2006 6:26:59 PM

Quote :

"You fail to understand that a corporation works in the same way the government does, just to a smaller scale. We citizens are stockholders in USAcorp. "

Not quite. When the govenment starts bleeding money, they just hike the taxes and the customers (the tax payers) pay it or go to jail.

By contrast if a business starts hiking prices because it's bleeding money, it just becomes that much more likely that it will be overrun by a competitor with better business sense.

8/25/2006 9:25:08 PM

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=emigration&x=0&y=0

And you also see a lot of investment overseas instead of here as well.

Both represent that phenomenon.

8/26/2006 4:23:40 AM

Quote :

"You fail to understand that a corporation works in the same way the government does, just to a smaller scale. We citizens are stockholders in USAcorp."

What 1337 said, plus I've already explained that corporations do not work as well as the overall American economy because they chronically suffer from a principle-agent problem which we as human beings have not and will never solve. The guy in charge has all the information and can pick and choose what to tell the owners.

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"And I believe you'd have to agree that the modern world has gotten progressively more mixed market."

You keep saying that, but it is complete bullshit. 30 years ago China was a totalitarian communist state, private property was a death sentence. The U.S. Federal Government regulated everything that moved in this country. Government bureaucrats set the price paid for shipping goods by truck, train, or plane. They set the prices charged by airlines. Pan Am was the de-facto state monopoly in air-travel. Other government bureaucrats set the price paid for Oil drilled in the U.S.. AT&T was a state granted (and protected) monopoly in telecommunications.

Today, China has one of the freest economies on the planet. In America, the domestic oil price structure was de-regulated in 1982, the trucking and train industries were completely deregulated, the Civil Aeronautics Board was closed down in 1985, Pan Am no longer exists , AT&T lost all its government protection and was even forcibly broken up in 1983.

So, no, free-marketeers rejoice in the reinstatement of the free-enterprise system over the past 30 years after so many years of fascist regulation. I just wonder how the hell you didn't notice it, were you born yesterday?

[Edited on August 26, 2006 at 9:18 AM. Reason : .,.]

8/26/2006 9:15:48 AM