Hoover hired Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who believed in the "leave it alone" approach. Hoover may have had the sense not to follow that advice, but hiring Mellon indicates Hoover's underlying philosophy.
Hoover was also too attached to balanced budgets (as was Roosevelt). In fact, as Reagan has proved, deficits don't matter.
The Fed also chose to defend the gold standard rather than supply needed liquidity. In the absence of Fed action, fiscal policy should have provided liquidity.
You cite the Panic of 1837 as a success for "leave it alone" economics. Yet van Buren was not re-elected, because the economy was still bad.
The free market improves the welfare of a few. For those who are left out, it has no compassion. Government has the ability to provide for the General Welfare; it can use fiscal policy to bypass central planners, and simply give everyone a basic income.
Actually, at least an order of magnitude more money is created by the private sector than by government. The private sector invented "kicking the can down the road".
Planned economies don't have to accompany a basic income. Give everyone a choice whether they want to enter the free market, or pursue their happiness on their own. Our goal is knowledge advancement; business is not the most efficient way to advance knowledge, because it is too short-sighted and focused on next quarter's stockholders' report.
What incentive was Kleinrock, et al. responding too, when they created the internet? Not economic. They simply wanted to connect computers long distances apart so they could communicate easier. Kleinrock has explicitly denied any economic motivation for the internet.
Today's anniversary gives us a chance to remember a salient fact about the Internet's origins. It was a government project, built with your tax money, because private companies (namely AT&T and IBM) didn't see enough profit in the idea. That's what government is supposed to do--take on important jobs shunned by the private sector.
The idea of an ongoing struggle between results-oriented managers and technical visionaries is not new. Economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen noted it in his 1904 book The Theory of Business Enterprise. Eighty-some years later, John Kenneth Galbraith cited Veblenâ(TM)s view to describe a dynamic still at work in a more modern economy:
"The businessmen, for good or ill, keep the talents and tendencies of the scientists and engineers under control and suppress them as necessary in order to maintain prices and maximize profits. From this view of the business firm, in turn, comes an obvious conclusion: somehow release those who are technically and imaginatively proficient from the restraints imposed by the business system and there will be unprecedented productivity and wealth in the economy."
A basic income is one way to "release" individuals from having to work for little Napoleon bosses more interested in playing control games than disruptive innovation. Hold challenges (like DARPA, Google Bug Bounties, X Prize, kaggle.com, Netflix Prize, etc.) to stimulate creativity.
"new kinds of jobs come to exist", but they are middlemen financial jobs that don't produce any real value, instead simply moving money around and profiting from arbitrage conditions that game the system, like borrowing from the Fed at 0% and buying T-bills at 3%.
We've already tried that. Hoover after the 1929 crash let the free market work on its own. After 3 years of worsening depression, the people wanted a New Deal.
Before, in 1837, van Buren continued Jackson's policy against a US Bank. Again, a prolonged recession led to his one-term presidency.
The free market is the problem. It does not care about the General Welfare. The market is quite happy to let poor people suffer. Government is mandated to provide for the vulnerable.
There is no scarcity of TVs or ability to broadcast shows. Why should poor kids not be able to watch?
Why do you think you know what is better for others to do, and that you should impose an artificial scarcity to make them behave as you would have them behave?
I've been in that area. The river is far enough away from the sides of the valley that it isn't eroding the slope. In my observational opinion. The river went through flat land, at least several hundred yards away from the valley wall.
Yes, the destruction of trees through harvesting contributes to water runoff. Why do you think flash floods happen in treeless areas like Utah box canyons?
Deforestation contributes to landslides and water runoff volume. It is not a magic bullet. Landslides might still occur if the land on top of the cliff hadn't been logged. But they would be less likely. And you would have nice old growth forests.
No, I don't think you have the physics right. Water flowing into the hill from the top down causes the slide. The river is far enough away from the cliff that your scenario doesn't happen.
Your dismissal of my evidence is itself an example of cherry-picking. Here's another typical example of business stifling speech: http://www.whas11.com/home/12-...
"According to a 2009 study by Internet security firm Proofpoint, 8 percent of companies with more than 1,000 employees have fired someone for social media actions -- a figure that is double what was reported in 2008."
Business is built upon the idea that hoarding is good. Non-disclosure agreements, trade secrets, copyrights all serve to censor the free and open transmission of knowledge. Maybe biz will finally get it, that open exchange is better for progress. But how much will I suffer meanwhile?
Capitalism and slavery are intimately connected. I wrote an essay on this subject, for the History of Capitalism MOOC: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/...
Why do wars accelerate technological innovation? Because govt funds research. Why not invest in disruptive innovation all the time? The market is too short-sighted: see http://depts.washington.edu/uw...
"Itâ(TM)s common for business people to point to the 1990sâ"specifically, to the 1995 Netscape IPOâ"as the âoebeginning of the Internet.â This claim is unsupported by fact. The Internet was âoebornâ in 1968, more than 25 years earlier. Internet pioneers, such as Bob Taylor, in interviews express frustration at how slowly business came to realize the importance of a collection of technologies that we now consider extremely valuable. Internet pioneers worked hard to prove the value of the new technologies, but business took a very long time to âoeget it.â"
Govt's greatest potential is in creating money to free individuals from having to do what "little Napoleon" bosses tell them to do. So get rid of government bureaucracies, leave the private sector alone (to fail), but provide an opt-in robust unconditional safety net. Stimulate innovation with challenges.
I'm not a people person. People make me depressed. I prefer to go out in nature and communicate with animals. I try to limit human contact to the internet.
Why should I suffer a lifestyle below the poverty line, because I don't sell? I produce things that no one wants to buy (and I just give away anyway because I hate selling), but someone who produces the same thing gets rich and rewarded, because he knows how to communicate non-verbally. That's the fickleness of the market.
The question and answer method seems to be suitable for introducing almost any one of the fields of human endeavour that we wish to include. We do not wish to penalise the machine for its inability to shine in beauty competitions, nor to penalise a man for losing in a race against an aeroplane. The conditions of our game make these disabilities irrelevant.
Turing also mentions the strategy of not behaving like a man, which the recent winner may be interpreted as having adopted:
It might be urged that when playing the "imitation game" the best strategy for the machine may possibly be something other than imitation of the behaviour of a man. This may be, but I think it is unlikely that there is any great effect of this kind. In any case there is no intention to investigate here the theory of the game, and it will be assumed that the best strategy is to try to provide answers that would naturally be given by a man.
US capitalism was still using slavery when it started to take off. US technology won World War II. What business would invest in computers or the nuclear bomb? Government did, because business was too short-sighted and focused on immediate profits.
Business's idea of the internet was Prodigy and Compuserve.
Government nourished the computer industry by ordering chips for TI during the 1960s, when hardly anyone else was.
I've worked for big corporations, I've worked for small businesses. The ability to make small talk, chat up the boss, and scapegoat trumped any technical skills. One boss used to "spin the fickle finger of blame" when a project overran its budget.
I'd like to get involved in government. I email representatives, sometimes getting replies. Maybe I will go to some public meetings.
Business actively prevents "shining a light" on its activities, with take-down notices, astroturfing, etc. You have a very sanitized view of business. I don't.
My experience with business is that it promotes lying. Liars are rewarded. I don't like to lie, so business has no use for me.
Government however has stepped up to provide for my General Welfare. If I relied on business, I'd be dead.
Your argument is contradictory. First you say that the internet has changed the evil nature of business. Then you say that the US's wealth is not due to technology.
Remember, business didn't see any use for the internet. Government invested in it, engineers at universities created it without thought to a profit motive (as Kleinrock has explicitly said). When engineers went to AT&T, they were dismissed because AT&T thought their focus should be on the telephone.
Government is for the people, by the people, of the people. Business makes money more important than people.
I've traveled. I've seen beggars in India asking for paisa, during monsoon season. I've seen community toilets in Beijing, for an entire neighborhood. My mother, raised in India, talks of the bribes she pays everyone, for anything. It's nothing like in the United States.
The US produces huge surpluses, thanks to technology. The goal is to increase knowledge and technology. Government has always played a role in innovation in the US, and it can facilitate a greater rate of technological progress.
Humans survived because of sharing. Hunters shared with gatherers.
The real goal is knowledge advance, and competitive business is not the best or only way to progress. Business has too many perverse incentives and moral hazards. Give people a choice, whether they want to enter the market or pursue ideas on their own. Hold challenges to stimulate disruptive innovation. Standards of living will rise increasingly faster.
Slashdot Mirror
The New Deal didn't work as well as it might, had Roosevelt not been distracted by trying to balance the budget.
Hoover hired Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who believed in the "leave it alone" approach. Hoover may have had the sense not to follow that advice, but hiring Mellon indicates Hoover's underlying philosophy.
Hoover was also too attached to balanced budgets (as was Roosevelt). In fact, as Reagan has proved, deficits don't matter.
The Fed also chose to defend the gold standard rather than supply needed liquidity. In the absence of Fed action, fiscal policy should have provided liquidity.
You cite the Panic of 1837 as a success for "leave it alone" economics. Yet van Buren was not re-elected, because the economy was still bad.
The free market improves the welfare of a few. For those who are left out, it has no compassion. Government has the ability to provide for the General Welfare; it can use fiscal policy to bypass central planners, and simply give everyone a basic income.
Actually, at least an order of magnitude more money is created by the private sector than by government. The private sector invented "kicking the can down the road".
Planned economies don't have to accompany a basic income. Give everyone a choice whether they want to enter the free market, or pursue their happiness on their own. Our goal is knowledge advancement; business is not the most efficient way to advance knowledge, because it is too short-sighted and focused on next quarter's stockholders' report.
What incentive was Kleinrock, et al. responding too, when they created the internet? Not economic. They simply wanted to connect computers long distances apart so they could communicate easier. Kleinrock has explicitly denied any economic motivation for the internet.
From http://www.latimes.com/busines...:
The private sector resisted the internet. From http://sloanreview.mit.edu/art...:
A basic income is one way to "release" individuals from having to work for little Napoleon bosses more interested in playing control games than disruptive innovation. Hold challenges (like DARPA, Google Bug Bounties, X Prize, kaggle.com, Netflix Prize, etc.) to stimulate creativity.
"new kinds of jobs come to exist", but they are middlemen financial jobs that don't produce any real value, instead simply moving money around and profiting from arbitrage conditions that game the system, like borrowing from the Fed at 0% and buying T-bills at 3%.
We've already tried that. Hoover after the 1929 crash let the free market work on its own. After 3 years of worsening depression, the people wanted a New Deal.
Before, in 1837, van Buren continued Jackson's policy against a US Bank. Again, a prolonged recession led to his one-term presidency.
The free market is the problem. It does not care about the General Welfare. The market is quite happy to let poor people suffer. Government is mandated to provide for the vulnerable.
Capitalism doesn't work when labor is not scarce. Capitalism only works by imposing artificial scarcity on capital.
How does Dark Energy lose its value?
There is no scarcity of TVs or ability to broadcast shows. Why should poor kids not be able to watch?
Why do you think you know what is better for others to do, and that you should impose an artificial scarcity to make them behave as you would have them behave?
I've been in that area. The river is far enough away from the sides of the valley that it isn't eroding the slope. In my observational opinion. The river went through flat land, at least several hundred yards away from the valley wall.
Yes, the destruction of trees through harvesting contributes to water runoff. Why do you think flash floods happen in treeless areas like Utah box canyons?
Which is a slippery slope argument (literally!).
Deforestation contributes to landslides and water runoff volume. It is not a magic bullet. Landslides might still occur if the land on top of the cliff hadn't been logged. But they would be less likely. And you would have nice old growth forests.
No, I don't think you have the physics right. Water flowing into the hill from the top down causes the slide. The river is far enough away from the cliff that your scenario doesn't happen.
When the disaster strikes, I can count on my good old Republican corporations to save me, because they will profit. Oh, wait.
Trees reduce the water flows. It's not the anchoring depth of the roots that matters, but the water retained by the large trees.
Trees suck up water that otherwise causes slides.
You're focusing on the wrong variable with surface area. Figure out water flows and how trees smooth those out.
Your dismissal of my evidence is itself an example of cherry-picking. Here's another typical example of business stifling speech: http://www.whas11.com/home/12-...
"According to a 2009 study by Internet security firm Proofpoint, 8 percent of companies with more than 1,000 employees have fired someone for social media actions -- a figure that is double what was reported in 2008."
Business is built upon the idea that hoarding is good. Non-disclosure agreements, trade secrets, copyrights all serve to censor the free and open transmission of knowledge. Maybe biz will finally get it, that open exchange is better for progress. But how much will I suffer meanwhile?
Capitalism and slavery are intimately connected. I wrote an essay on this subject, for the History of Capitalism MOOC: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/...
Why do wars accelerate technological innovation? Because govt funds research. Why not invest in disruptive innovation all the time? The market is too short-sighted: see http://depts.washington.edu/uw...
"Itâ(TM)s common for business people to point to the 1990sâ"specifically, to the 1995 Netscape IPOâ"as the âoebeginning of the Internet.â This claim is unsupported by fact. The Internet was âoebornâ in 1968, more than 25 years earlier. Internet pioneers, such as Bob Taylor, in interviews express frustration at how slowly business came to realize the importance of a collection of technologies that we now consider extremely valuable. Internet pioneers worked hard to prove the value of the new technologies, but business took a very long time to âoeget it.â"
Govt's greatest potential is in creating money to free individuals from having to do what "little Napoleon" bosses tell them to do. So get rid of government bureaucracies, leave the private sector alone (to fail), but provide an opt-in robust unconditional safety net. Stimulate innovation with challenges.
I'm not a people person. People make me depressed. I prefer to go out in nature and communicate with animals. I try to limit human contact to the internet.
Why should I suffer a lifestyle below the poverty line, because I don't sell? I produce things that no one wants to buy (and I just give away anyway because I hate selling), but someone who produces the same thing gets rich and rewarded, because he knows how to communicate non-verbally. That's the fickleness of the market.
Sure, and McCarthy's Advice Taker is basically implemented in driving direction programs.
No, it says natural language is the best way to measure human intelligence.
http://www.csee.umbc.edu/cours... "Computing Machinery and Intelligence":
Turing also mentions the strategy of not behaving like a man, which the recent winner may be interpreted as having adopted:
Evidence of business attempting to censor: The perils of posting scathing reviews on Yelp and Angie's List
Evidence that business lies: Cable industry finally admits that data caps have nothing to do with congestion.
US capitalism was still using slavery when it started to take off. US technology won World War II. What business would invest in computers or the nuclear bomb? Government did, because business was too short-sighted and focused on immediate profits.
Business's idea of the internet was Prodigy and Compuserve.
Government nourished the computer industry by ordering chips for TI during the 1960s, when hardly anyone else was.
I've worked for big corporations, I've worked for small businesses. The ability to make small talk, chat up the boss, and scapegoat trumped any technical skills. One boss used to "spin the fickle finger of blame" when a project overran its budget.
I'd like to get involved in government. I email representatives, sometimes getting replies. Maybe I will go to some public meetings.
Don't people use Tor for perfectly legal things like making it more difficult for an irc op to ban you.
Business actively prevents "shining a light" on its activities, with take-down notices, astroturfing, etc. You have a very sanitized view of business. I don't.
My experience with business is that it promotes lying. Liars are rewarded. I don't like to lie, so business has no use for me.
Government however has stepped up to provide for my General Welfare. If I relied on business, I'd be dead.
Your argument is contradictory. First you say that the internet has changed the evil nature of business. Then you say that the US's wealth is not due to technology.
Remember, business didn't see any use for the internet. Government invested in it, engineers at universities created it without thought to a profit motive (as Kleinrock has explicitly said). When engineers went to AT&T, they were dismissed because AT&T thought their focus should be on the telephone.
Government is for the people, by the people, of the people. Business makes money more important than people.
I understand why Russians don't mention it. But what about the "fellow travelers" like the GP?
What did the Russians call it when Putin poisoned diplomats he didn't like?
I've traveled. I've seen beggars in India asking for paisa, during monsoon season. I've seen community toilets in Beijing, for an entire neighborhood. My mother, raised in India, talks of the bribes she pays everyone, for anything. It's nothing like in the United States.
The US produces huge surpluses, thanks to technology. The goal is to increase knowledge and technology. Government has always played a role in innovation in the US, and it can facilitate a greater rate of technological progress.
Humans survived because of sharing. Hunters shared with gatherers.
The real goal is knowledge advance, and competitive business is not the best or only way to progress. Business has too many perverse incentives and moral hazards. Give people a choice, whether they want to enter the market or pursue ideas on their own. Hold challenges to stimulate disruptive innovation. Standards of living will rise increasingly faster.
So living in Somalia would be just the same?