Slashdot Mirror

This comes to mind...

http://cafehayek.com/2014/03/t...

(Don't go off on the web page; it's just a place google found the cartoon that didn't require a login)

The Left loves.....blogging their useless opinions to find people with similar views.

Conservatives love blogging a lot.

Bloviating is a human tradition that knows no political parties (a couple of those blogs look reasonably good, too).

Those poor people that live there, my God. How can we still have such a place on this earth.

There are still people who believe that North Korea is closer to an ideal than Hong Kong or Belgium. Look at how excited they are about the rapid decline of Venezuela. Oh, right, the capitalists are all there sabotaging the People's Armies...

As long as people in large groups reject reason, then other large groups of people will die for it.

in this letter and comment.

The most ironic point: "Should we discover (as we undoubtedly would) that tens of thousands of copies of today's NYT were printed, delivered, and sold to subscribers who never read Glanz's report, do we conclude that the NYT needs a new and less-wasteful business model?"

If governments fought real wars like they fight trade wars, here’s how the transcript of the communiqués between the leaders of two warring nations would read:

Leader of Absurditopia (A): I say, leader of Stupidia – we demand that you stop occupying that contested strip of land. If you refuse, we’ll have no choice but to shoot our own citizens.

Leader of Stupidia (S): You don’t scare us! That land is ours. And if you do kill some of your own people, make no mistake that we will immediately – and just as cruelly – commence to killing our own people. Courage is our national motto!

(A): Ha! You’re bluffing. But I’m not. I’ve just courageously ordered my troops to mow down in cold blood ten percent of my fellow countrymen. Take that!

(S): How dare you attack you like that! You leave us no choice but to attack us. I am ordering the Stupidian army to slaughter 15 percent of innocent Stupidians here in Stupidia. How do you like them apples?!

(A): You are cruel and inhuman to damage us by killing your people. I hereby instruct all of my fellow Absurditopians to commit suicide! Only then will you nasty Stupidians get your proper comeuppance and we Absurditopians the justice that we are due!

(S): You can’t beat us, you Absurditopian you! Listen up. I’m ordering all of my fellow citizens – Stupidians all! – to commit suicide. We’ll see who emerges victorious!
---
Then a long, long silence.

-from http://cafehayek.com/2010/10/if-trade-wars-were-like-real-wars.html

I disagree, unions don't do much of anything. Unions simply make jobs markets tighter and harder to get a job in. It really is a pretty selfish thing to do.

http://cafehayek.com/2011/02/the-alternative-to-unions.html

Every time in history, that the middle class has been wiped out, it has been from bad government monetary policy, or the institution of communism, period. Capitalism has always increased over time the quality of life for all.
The Government is going broke, and from Reinhart and Rogoff's book "This time it's Different, Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" Every time a government reaches the current situation of the West's balance sheet (Europe, and the US), governments have debased the currency - bad monetary policy, or faced default, ending all of those nice entitlement programs and military adventures overseas.

Also, the "crumbling infrastructure" argument is patently false:
http://cafehayek.com/2011/09/its-this-myth-that-should-be-crumbling.html
http://cafehayek.com/2011/09/crumbling.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-infrastructure-argument-that-crumbles-upon-examination/2011/10/31/gIQAnILRaM_story.html

Every time in history, that the middle class has been wiped out, it has been from bad government monetary policy, or the institution of communism, period. Capitalism has always increased over time the quality of life for all.
The Government is going broke, and from Reinhart and Rogoff's book "This time it's Different, Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" Every time a government reaches the current situation of the West's balance sheet (Europe, and the US), governments have debased the currency - bad monetary policy, or faced default, ending all of those nice entitlement programs and military adventures overseas.

Also, the "crumbling infrastructure" argument is patently false:
http://cafehayek.com/2011/09/its-this-myth-that-should-be-crumbling.html
http://cafehayek.com/2011/09/crumbling.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-infrastructure-argument-that-crumbles-upon-examination/2011/10/31/gIQAnILRaM_story.html

It's just not going to happen. Some, like this article, argue that it's a good thing:
http://cafehayek.com/2011/09/artificial-scarcities-are-not-wealth.html

While I'm not convinced, I see economics knows no borders. So while people get impoverished in the US, many more in China are having their standard of living raised.

IMO, the real problem of the US was not so much no longer producing things, but that we are a consumer society rather than a saving one to it's very core. I'm not even talking about buying doo-hickeys and doo-dads, compared to a country like Germany, we spend use 4x the oil per capita. That means so much more capital going out of the country to squander on a resource when we don't have to. There are many reasons for that, mostly inefficient housing (poor standards), and suburbanization. Go to any school in Germany and you'll see the front will have lots and lots of bike racks, and will actually be filled during school hours. Not so in most of America.

To amass wealth, one actually has to save. When you save, your opportunities and possibilities expand as well as society being able to use your savings to make investments. Many people here live paycheck to paycheck, paying off minimum balances on rising CC bills. I read somewhere that Americans spend 2.5-3x more time shopping. Not sure the cause of this, except maybe we aren't a very socially connected society?

The problem with just saying we need to make things, is that right now, the Chinese will just be cheaper. It certainly doesn't help that we are increasingly sending our more and more valuable jobs there (hence I'm not convinced of all that "let them build the low-end shit while we make better stuff" since the Japanese overtook our Car and Steel industries the same way - hell they worked hard for it while the Big 3 kept and keep pushing out inferior product)

Ford raised workers’ wages for two reasons, neither of which had anything to do with raising consumer demand for his automobiles. The first reason was to reduce worker turnover. In 1913, the year before the $5 wage was announced in January 1914, the average Ford employee quit after less than four months on the job. A workforce so unstable and inexperienced prevented Ford’s factories from achieving peak efficiency.

Second, because the $5 wage was conditioned upon Ford’s workers learning English, as well as their steering clear of alcohol and gambling – conditions monitored by Ford executives visiting workers’ homes! – the higher wage was an incentive for workers to be more reliable and productive while on the job.

In short, Ford was something of an early supply-sider. He understood (at least in 1914) that the key to economic growth is not in giving people stronger incentives to spend but, rather, in giving people stronger incentives to produce.

Irrelevant. Those goods may be produced in Asia but they are sold by people with jobs here - advertisers, retail staff and so forth. I'm not up for getting into a massive discussion about it but take a look at http://cafehayek.com/myths-and-fallacies and some of the articles there. You should have more respect for his opinion than mine. To answer the second question, I'm not an economist but he is.

I've read a lot of Hayek. I disagree with him on a few topics (but if I were on the same level as him, I'd have my own following :)). As for it being irrelevant, that's not quite so. It just means that while we're not losing 100% of the cash being spent on foreign goods, we are still losing some of the positive impact that cash could have in our economy.

Emphasis mine:

"When the economy is doing fine, he estimates, $1 of government spending yields 40 cents in extra production and related jobs." - http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/does-the-return-on-government-spending-triple-in-a-depression/19200069/

Did you read that article? DeLong states that in a "normal" economy, return on government spending is about 1.4 (40% over and above the amount invested). But during a depression, return is 2.5 (150% over and above what is spent). Important to note that DeLong is a Keynesian... if you're looking for a non-Keynesian point of view, he's a bad source :)

I think the safer course of action with those odds is to leave the money with the people who know how to spend it best in their situation, the people who earned it.

History tells us that's a poor option. Devastating cycles of recessions and depressions in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries would tend to agree...

Sorry for not posting sooner. Sick child in the house.

That's a bold assertion. What happens when they spend all the money on consumer goods produced in Asia?

Irrelevant. Those goods may be produced in Asia but they are sold by people with jobs here - advertisers, retail staff and so forth. I'm not up for getting into a massive discussion about it but take a look at http://cafehayek.com/myths-and-fallacies and some of the articles there. You should have more respect for his opinion than mine. To answer the second question, I'm not an economist but he is.

I find it interesting that you mention "Even the Austrians..." because I was just reading about that today. I really need to use some sort of web clipping addon.

Anyway, I would have to say I align myself pretty strongly with Hayek but my personal philosophy is whatever provides the greatest amount of individual economic freedom.

And I'm still looking for a good "unbiased" source of information on government spending. I hesitate to link to a third-party news source (especially News Busters) quoting Milton Friedman from a book, however this link has a subsection that is of interest:

http://newsbusters.org/node/27813/print

My google-fu isn't strong enough at this late hour but I also found an interesting statement:

"When the economy is doing fine, he estimates, $1 of government spending yields 40 cents in extra production and related jobs." - http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/does-the-return-on-government-spending-triple-in-a-depression/19200069/

In a such a short article, there's not much meat but I'm interested in seeing any corroboration and/or rebutal to the theories at the end.

Taken in light of the Friedman statements and the basic reality of where government gets its money would seem to suggest that there IS a very small window where government COULD stimulate the economy.

However that window is smaller, IMHO, than trying to hit a two-meter thermal exhaust port. On one side (spending too early) it's wasteful and takes money from the private sector. On the other side, you end up with massive inflation.

I think the safer course of action with those odds is to leave the money with the people who know how to spend it best in their situation, the people who earned it.