- bzzzzzzzt. What gives you the right to think you can do that and be a computer nerd exactly? Also, how does one have 2 jobs and a life in the same time span?
As usual the politicians are proven wrong and backwards with their attempts at 'curbing violence' by fighting this battle against the imaginary violence in games.
As usual, it is shown that whatever politicians wanted to do was going to have the exact opposite effect, so when they fight imaginary violence in video-games, they would be causing more of the real violence in real world, because now it is shown that violent videogames reduce violence in real world.
Whenever you are in doubt about what the outcome of any law, any bill is going to be in real life, just take the name of that bill and reverse it in terms of its intentions.
So if they want to 'fight poverty', it means they'll create more poverty. If they want to 'fight violence', they will end up creating more violence, etc.
It's just a number that prevents users of my add-ons (extensions) from installing them once the number changes. I released those pieces just for the hell of it, since I already wrote them for myself, they use minimum features, so there is really nothing to do for me between releases, the add-ons just continue working. But there is a long lag between the release of the 'new' FF 'version' and the time the automated tests show that there is nothing in the add-ons that needs to be changed, in the meanwhile I start getting all these complains from people, who want me to 'support' the new FF version.
There is nothing to support, it doesn't need to be modified, it works as is and these constant version bumps only create more traffic in my inbox for no reason and frustration for those, who move up to the new FF version but can't have the add ons work there right away. I don't bump up the versions of the add-ons by hand because I have nothing to modify and I have better things to do, so this is just pure nonsense from FF.
On my dev box I now have Opera and use it half of the time because FF crashes too often on my GNU/Linux machine and Opera is much more stable and uses less memory and is faster.
Instead of bumping up versions uselessly, how about working out the bugs in at least one of them and make it a really stable browser? Oh, and while at it, how about changing the way FF treats self-signed certs, so that instead of scaring the users away with nonsense that wouldn't pass for HTTP but for some reason is acceptable in way that HTTPS with self signed certs is treated, instead come up with a useful way to display that this is a self signed cert and still allow the connection without displaying the 'safe' visual cues? But what am I saying? I bet that SSL CAs provide enough kickbacks to the browser company that this issue won't be addressed.
But you'll get your version to match and overshadow the competition. Why not just jump right to version 100 right now and be done with it for at least 6 more months?
The CPI is currently running at an annual rate of 3.57%, not 10%
- hedonics and substitutions. CPI is engineered to display low number, not to show inflation, which is increase in money supply, not rising prices (just like deflation is not falling prices.)
And I'm not sure how you equate deflation over the course of the 19th century with constant growth and prosperity. There WERE several recessions, and they were quite severe.
- yet dollar ended in 1913 twice as valuable as it started in 1800 and today, it maintains less than 1% of it's 1913 value. This is despite any local busts, which always are good for the economy.
Again, busts are good for the economy, they are the force that balances out the mis-allocated resources, shuts down the failing businesses and frees the resources/credit for new startups.
I'm speaking as an investor also... consumer credit has been a perfectly respectable and profitable business for decades. Yes, some bankers made some VERY bad choices about risk recently (without a near-free Discount Window), but that does not negate the entire idea of consumer credit.
- the entire concept of consumer credit is flawed, as consumers who are in producer economies, have strong purchasing power and do not need to get into debt to buy their stuff, so if consumers en mass need the credit to buy whatever, then the economy itself is flawed already, so any consumer debt in that economy is only exacerbating the problem.
My debt right now consists of my mortgage. I win, because my cash isn't tied up in my house, and my bank wins because they are taking in my interest payments.
- the value of your house will be going down (in most cases, maybe you live in a very desirable area, which are basically New York or LA- because there is plenty of international competition for the homes, or Washington DC - because that's where all the money is today that is not at Wall street).
As value of your houses plunges (in real terms), you will find yourself not winning, but wondering, why are you still paying the high premiums for the property that is going down in price (real terms).
Your bank will lose, as you will run away from your property not to pay the mortgage, and they'll be stuck with more inventory they can't sell.
'm not sure why you insist this is a horrible deal for the investor that currently owns my loan.
- maybe you'll be the lucky one, who'll still have his job even after the US t-bill bubble bursts, but as dollar collapses even your job won't be useful to pay back your debt, which will be inflated away. So your creditor will lose in terms of getting the investment back, and you'll lose as your economy won't support your needs anymore.
Who sets what is criminal Law and what is Contract Law? Who or what decides these things?
- preferably this is done without the government intervention as well, via private competing court systems. This is not a new idea BTW., has been used for thousands of years, where people went to decide their cases to the private judge they agreed upon and most respected.
Ouch, so if they all agree murder is fun, we should do nothing?
- I don't see the connection. Are you or are you not talking about Niagara Falls? As to ' if they all agree murder is fun, we should do nothing' - this is a private matter, government has no place in this.
Depends on the entrepreneurs. I would argue that Patents are horrible but supposedly they exist to help the individual entrepreneurs.
- patents enforced by government shouldn't exist. Neither should copyrights etc. There used to be such thing, called 'trade secret' - that's all that there needs to be in the market.
Whats to stop a larger business eat the individual entrepreneurs?
- as long as there is no government involvement it's a free for all and I don't care. If a small business cannot survive a larger one (for whatever reason), then where is the problem? It was a market decision.
The problem is that people have defined this as a fight between government and business and its actually a partnership. Some businesses get more out of the government (See Goldman Sachs) than others.
- when you have government sponsoring business, then that business is government, so a fight between GS and a startup (it's impossible to encroach on GS's territory today due to government regulations, which protects large businesses and GS specifically) is a fight between government and private business.
who says I am doing it 'instead'? Based on my understanding of this matter my purchasing power increased in the last decade, while those, who are relying on the witch doctors you call 'economists', are seeing results similar to this.
Are you arguing that as a Business I can do whatever I want to do?
- sure. If you don't overstep the boundaries of criminal law and if you don't lose in the court of contract law.
That all government does is defense and nothing internal?
- that's the point of having a government, so that that space is occupied by some known entity, which is kept there just so there is no fight going over who is in there.
That in the end the Love Canal will continue to exist?
- if it's in private hands and the neighbors are all private entities, it's their business.
From Monty Python in Life of Brian: âoeAll right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?â
- in the fight between governments and individual entrepreneurs any government victory is a loss to the economy and society.
You're welcome to your own definitions of economic terms, but don't expect to be able to hold rational conversations with economists.
- who do you call 'economists' exactly? The witch doctors of the modern era, who only know one thing to fix all problems, how to operate the giant money printing machine and the zero adding computer?
Re:You have strange ideas about rates of return.
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I think you're just risk-averse, and attempting to imagine an economic system in which everyone is like you.
- really? Is that why I changed not only countries (6 times) but even continents 4 times while building my own companies from ground up? Hmmm. I think you just found a new definition for being 'risk averse'.
Inflation is increase in money supply. Prices rise and fall, they don't 'inflate' or 'deflate'.
Money supply is only one input into inflation, not its definition.
- wrong. The dictionaries used to define inflation correctly as expansion of money supply, then the government decided it needed to hide the inflation rate and so it pushed forward this concept that inflation is rising prices. This is wrong.
Conversely if demand is falling quickly, an economy will see little inflation even if the money supply is increasing (see: the U.S. for the past 3 years).
- wrong. Prices in USA are going up not as quickly as they must, but not because of the reasons you think. The reason that prices in USA are mostly steady is because US is exporting its inflation (money supply), to other nations, specifically to those nations, with who US has trade deficit.
Switzerland has currency that is constantly strengthening against all other currencies, they are no longer printing it and the unemployment is also only 3%. I bet when you say 'inflation' you are talking about prices and not money supply.
Persons loaning out money and banks loaning out money operates with two different sets of rules, thanks to banks being able to operate using "reserve banking". That is, they can loan out beyond what they have on ledger from deposits and such.
- that's how banks 'work' in presence of all the government moral hazard, free money and regulations. That's how they fail and then are bailed out by the Fed.
This is simply a disguised argument for a centrally planned economy,
- that's simply not true.
I am not telling you who to loan your money to, I am talking about government taking its hands off of where they don't belong - the economy. The rest is up to the market to decide.
Because the alternative--holding onto a currency that devalues--is even less desirable. Inflation is the stick that keeps people from sitting on cash for years, just waiting for that one perfect, guaranteed investment (which does not exist).
- yet this does not happen in Switzerland, with the appreciating Franc, it didn't happen in US in 19 century, where dollar was appreciating in value while competition was thriving.
The Market forces of the Pinkerton's used in Smashing workers heads?
- criminal law and business legislation are separate issues.
The Sherman Anti-trust Act?
- created to advance government power, who promoted one monopolist over another. By the time this was used on Standard Oil, that company wasn't a monopoly, and in either case, if a monopolist (like Alcoa Aluminum) is a monopolist, because he provides the market with cheapest/highest quality product and nobody can compete based on quality/price, then the law only hurts the market, since the market has chosen that monopolist over competition in that specific market niche. By the way, the tycoons of the past were helped by plenty of government ties.
The government has always had to regulate Free Market.
- no. Government always got its paws into the business side of things, where it clearly didn't belong, but its intervention always results in net-negative outcome for the market, regardless of the intentions.
- created by government regulations of the energy market and very partial deregulation, which ends up being worse than equally applied regulations. Regulations shouldn't exist in the first place, but if they do exist, they need to be equally applied.
junk bonds
- the largest asset bubble known in history is being inflated now in US Treasury bonds.
Mortgage back securities
- created by the FHA.
monopolies
- created, supported, bailed out and stimulated by government.
The problem with government regulation is NOT that there has to be regulation is that a lot of the regulation is either written poorly and harms the company unduly, or is written poorly and basically meaningless. I, for one, love that my food is regulated, my water is regulated, I can breathe better air, my kids get schooling, I can worship at my Church of choice, and I can own a Gun.
- I like government to stay out of everything. It can't do anything that you named there anyway and it only causes more resource mis-allocation, price hikes and inflation as well as corruption. I want my food to be left alone by all governments. I trust the companies who want to make profit from my business much more than I trust any government, and if I want certifications on my food, I want it to be done via competing certificate businesses, not corrupt government monopoly.
So I have presented that regulations are not bad in and of themselves, now can we discuss which regulations are harming companies?
- I disagree with every word in your 'presentation'.
What about our incredible regulations on export of any product?
- what about them? Why would I want government hindering trade?
Thats for Defense.. so we should keep it as is?
- what defense? AFAIC there is no such thing. There is only offense.
Should we leave the current system in place where Companies have to now prove they are fully funding the contracts they made with their own employees (called pensions)?
- no. There should be no enforcing of any specific pension plan, this must be left in the hands of employees, and what is really needed is income taxes to be 0, so that people have actual investment capital in their hands to care about their future.
What about road regulations, where Trucks have to be weighed going down highways?
- what about that? There must be no government involvement in roads at all, governments must sell their assets and pay their debts out, not subsidize the car industry and destroy any reasonable infrastructure and public transit effort in the process.
Bottom Line in this discussion: If the US does nothing to keep its middle class, it does not matter what will happen with China as the US will fade away as we know it.
- I am not sure who and what it is you suppose must 'keep its middle class' and in which way this must be achieved, but 19 century USA created the middle class - small business owner and professional worker, and it was done purely via market forces, not by government regulations.
Re:BitCoins are simply a hobby, not a currency
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The space shuttle was a brilliant piece of innovative engineering but utterly worthless to the economy.
- I don't see your point.
The governments of the world spent billions trying to go to the Moon. So US won and then what? All that money - SS money by the way. Down the drain (well, up into the sky really, but the net effect was the same.)
A steam powered washing machine that no one uses is of little consequence. An inexpensive electric one that everyone can own is of great consequence.
- electrical power use started in 19 century. Radio, phones, telegraphs, lights, etc.etc. Oh, and sewing machines were human powered and still they were a huge step forward in terms of efficiency and ability of the market to provide plenty of cheap clothing.
You know what, I'll take the word of leading economists over soem random guy on slashdot.
- that's your prerogative. To me the 'leading economists' of the world are as much shamans as the witch doctors of the yesteryear. They can keep pushing their propaganda all they want and you are more than welcome to keep your valuables in their hands.
Re:If you are the casino, gambling is profitable
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credit card companies can only gamble this way because they have access to the Fed's discount window.
Get me that access and I won't give a shit about your creditworthiness either.
It is a perfectly legitimate use of credit to enable the purchase of something that I do not have immediate liquid capital to obtain.
- from POV of a consumer you are correct. From POV of an investor this is a travesty, but from POV of a gambler (like a credit card company), this is just about placing the bets right and keeping the interest very high.
why should I be unable to obtain a loan to enable me to do so now?
- it's not about you, it's about your creditor. If he is willing, it's in your best interest to take the loan. My point was orthogonal to yours, I am talking from POV of an investor.
If the bank will loan me money
- exactly. If a bank gives you money - take it. I am not disputing this, though I prefer not to be in debt personally.
Yes, eventually I have to pay the car or house loan back
- not anymore. Nowadays you just give devalued cash back or you walk away from the property, because you have no skin in the game - that's how many so called 'home owners' are living today. They didn't put anything down. They are living cheaper than they would while renting and if things go sour they can just walk. This is not a problem for a debtor.
Just because some people default on loans does not mean that the idea of principal + interest is some kind of foreign concept to the average citizen.
- that was not my point. My point is that credit exists in order to make more money, that's why somebody would invest - give a loan to somebody. To make more money.
- the entire concept of residential mortgage is faulty, because it lays on a premise that your house is an investment, and it's not. It's a money drain, not a money maker.
I'm sure what you meant to say was "...the economy of USA was also growing very quickly, (except for the Panic of 1819, the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, the Panic of 1873, and the Panic of 1893)..." These were steep recessions that made the recent unpleasantness look like a minor bump in the road.
- nonsense. US dollar went up in value by a factor of 2 from 1800 to 1913, so those 'steep recessions' did not derail the economic activity - business and production capacity.
The current depression is in a different ball park altogether, there is no production capacity, the consumers, government and government supported monopolies/oligopolies are highly leveraged and there is no way to pay back the debt, as there is nothing that produces anything that anybody would want to take in lieu of the debt.
What makes credit difficult is a volitile currency, not necessarily an inflating or deflating one. With an inflating currency, I must simply add my inflation expectations to the real rate of return I would like to obtain
- today US has about 10% annual inflation rate. Good luck with your investment strategy with these numbers.
Why on earth does it matter what a loan is being used for?
- this kind of thinking is used to provide kids, who go to colleges with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. It absolutely matters what loans are being used for, and you should know this by now, as it should have been made clear to you from the crash of 2008 if from nothing else.
It absolutely matters what people use loans for, and if I am an investor I only want to give loans to people, who can generate income based on that money, not to people who want to buy another beach property, confusing a government created asset bubble with real business.
If I can predict the amount of inflation, why not put my money into a depreciating currency? It's no more risky than a loan in a predicable appreciating currency.
- putting money into inflation means trusting the government not to
Re:BitCoins are simply a hobby, not a currency
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Except it wasn't. Overall the economic growth as best I could find data for was, population growth adjusted, lower in the 1800s than in the 1900s.
- 1800 started without washing machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, fridges, anesthetic, cars, airplanes, indoor plumbing, telephones, electric lights, telegraphs, radio, phonographs, safe plentiful food and medicine, etc.etc.etc.
All those things were created in the 19 century. They became the infrastructure, upon which the 20th century could continue creating. The 20th century though did push the statistical numbers up, like GDP, that's exactly because the Fed was created and started printing the cash.
Then there's all the recessions and depressions, as someone pointed out, there were a lot more frequent back then and covered more time.
- yet all that innovation still appeared in 19 century, despite all sorts of busts, which were necessary cures to the illness of resource mis-allocation.
You believe for some reason that small but numerous recessions and depressions are bad for the overall economy, and you are not alone in this mistaken belief. The governments of the world also believe this, but what they mostly believe is that when banks give loans to States (be it Greece or US, etc.,) that the bankers must always get their money back (IMF is a huge part of this racket by the way.)
This is nonsense, it's sick, it's wrong, it's broken, it's destructive and it's corruption.
There must be busts. There need to be recessions and depressions which are corrections to the resource mis-allocation that takes place during a boom.
The attempts by all of the presidents of US to avoid the recession happening during their presidency is what is killing the economy, because their way of fighting the correction is by creating more and deeper imbalances, which will hit harder next time.
you cannot outlaw something, for which there is real majority support, so by the time they did outlaw slavery, it was really an insignificant part of the overall economy found only in packets of it.
Slashdot Mirror
I said:
just observing how the developers do it
, I didn't say: "you do the review".
Take off your manager hat if needed, tell them you want to learn, not to judge them there.
Maybe you want to schedule 1-2 code reviews per week and participate in them first, just observing how the developers do it?
Start from there, then you'll be in better position to judge whether this is something you are really interested in.
I work 2 jobs and I have a life.
- bzzzzzzzt. What gives you the right to think you can do that and be a computer nerd exactly? Also, how does one have 2 jobs and a life in the same time span?
As usual the politicians are proven wrong and backwards with their attempts at 'curbing violence' by fighting this battle against the imaginary violence in games.
As usual, it is shown that whatever politicians wanted to do was going to have the exact opposite effect, so when they fight imaginary violence in video-games, they would be causing more of the real violence in real world, because now it is shown that violent videogames reduce violence in real world.
Whenever you are in doubt about what the outcome of any law, any bill is going to be in real life, just take the name of that bill and reverse it in terms of its intentions.
So if they want to 'fight poverty', it means they'll create more poverty. If they want to 'fight violence', they will end up creating more violence, etc.
same thing as always, plenty of wanking and dick waving.
It's just a number that prevents users of my add-ons (extensions) from installing them once the number changes. I released those pieces just for the hell of it, since I already wrote them for myself, they use minimum features, so there is really nothing to do for me between releases, the add-ons just continue working. But there is a long lag between the release of the 'new' FF 'version' and the time the automated tests show that there is nothing in the add-ons that needs to be changed, in the meanwhile I start getting all these complains from people, who want me to 'support' the new FF version.
There is nothing to support, it doesn't need to be modified, it works as is and these constant version bumps only create more traffic in my inbox for no reason and frustration for those, who move up to the new FF version but can't have the add ons work there right away. I don't bump up the versions of the add-ons by hand because I have nothing to modify and I have better things to do, so this is just pure nonsense from FF.
On my dev box I now have Opera and use it half of the time because FF crashes too often on my GNU/Linux machine and Opera is much more stable and uses less memory and is faster.
Instead of bumping up versions uselessly, how about working out the bugs in at least one of them and make it a really stable browser? Oh, and while at it, how about changing the way FF treats self-signed certs, so that instead of scaring the users away with nonsense that wouldn't pass for HTTP but for some reason is acceptable in way that HTTPS with self signed certs is treated, instead come up with a useful way to display that this is a self signed cert and still allow the connection without displaying the 'safe' visual cues? But what am I saying? I bet that SSL CAs provide enough kickbacks to the browser company that this issue won't be addressed.
But you'll get your version to match and overshadow the competition. Why not just jump right to version 100 right now and be done with it for at least 6 more months?
The problem is that with the giant laser on its head, the shark just can't manage to jump over itself.
The CPI is currently running at an annual rate of 3.57%, not 10%
- hedonics and substitutions. CPI is engineered to display low number, not to show inflation, which is increase in money supply, not rising prices (just like deflation is not falling prices.)
Real inflation is about 10% per year, I calculate my numbers as opposed to listening to government snake oil salesmen, witch doctors and shamans they call economists..
And I'm not sure how you equate deflation over the course of the 19th century with constant growth and prosperity. There WERE several recessions, and they were quite severe.
- yet dollar ended in 1913 twice as valuable as it started in 1800 and today, it maintains less than 1% of it's 1913 value. This is despite any local busts, which always are good for the economy.
Again, busts are good for the economy, they are the force that balances out the mis-allocated resources, shuts down the failing businesses and frees the resources/credit for new startups.
I'm speaking as an investor also... consumer credit has been a perfectly respectable and profitable business for decades. Yes, some bankers made some VERY bad choices about risk recently (without a near-free Discount Window), but that does not negate the entire idea of consumer credit.
- the entire concept of consumer credit is flawed, as consumers who are in producer economies, have strong purchasing power and do not need to get into debt to buy their stuff, so if consumers en mass need the credit to buy whatever, then the economy itself is flawed already, so any consumer debt in that economy is only exacerbating the problem.
My debt right now consists of my mortgage. I win, because my cash isn't tied up in my house, and my bank wins because they are taking in my interest payments.
- the value of your house will be going down (in most cases, maybe you live in a very desirable area, which are basically New York or LA- because there is plenty of international competition for the homes, or Washington DC - because that's where all the money is today that is not at Wall street).
As value of your houses plunges (in real terms), you will find yourself not winning, but wondering, why are you still paying the high premiums for the property that is going down in price (real terms).
Your bank will lose, as you will run away from your property not to pay the mortgage, and they'll be stuck with more inventory they can't sell.
'm not sure why you insist this is a horrible deal for the investor that currently owns my loan.
- maybe you'll be the lucky one, who'll still have his job even after the US t-bill bubble bursts, but as dollar collapses even your job won't be useful to pay back your debt, which will be inflated away. So your creditor will lose in terms of getting the investment back, and you'll lose as your economy won't support your needs anymore.
I disagree with you on economics, yet my own purchasing power has also increased in the last decade. It seems we have reached stalemate. :-)
- one does not need to understand economics to have the purchasing power increase, there are other ways of doing that.
Who sets what is criminal Law and what is Contract Law? Who or what decides these things?
- preferably this is done without the government intervention as well, via private competing court systems. This is not a new idea BTW., has been used for thousands of years, where people went to decide their cases to the private judge they agreed upon and most respected.
Ouch, so if they all agree murder is fun, we should do nothing?
- I don't see the connection. Are you or are you not talking about Niagara Falls? As to ' if they all agree murder is fun, we should do nothing' - this is a private matter, government has no place in this.
Depends on the entrepreneurs. I would argue that Patents are horrible but supposedly they exist to help the individual entrepreneurs.
- patents enforced by government shouldn't exist. Neither should copyrights etc. There used to be such thing, called 'trade secret' - that's all that there needs to be in the market.
Whats to stop a larger business eat the individual entrepreneurs?
- as long as there is no government involvement it's a free for all and I don't care. If a small business cannot survive a larger one (for whatever reason), then where is the problem? It was a market decision.
The problem is that people have defined this as a fight between government and business and its actually a partnership. Some businesses get more out of the government (See Goldman Sachs) than others.
- when you have government sponsoring business, then that business is government, so a fight between GS and a startup (it's impossible to encroach on GS's territory today due to government regulations, which protects large businesses and GS specifically) is a fight between government and private business.
who says I am doing it 'instead'? Based on my understanding of this matter my purchasing power increased in the last decade, while those, who are relying on the witch doctors you call 'economists', are seeing results similar to this.
Are you arguing that as a Business I can do whatever I want to do?
- sure. If you don't overstep the boundaries of criminal law and if you don't lose in the court of contract law.
That all government does is defense and nothing internal?
- that's the point of having a government, so that that space is occupied by some known entity, which is kept there just so there is no fight going over who is in there.
That in the end the Love Canal will continue to exist?
- if it's in private hands and the neighbors are all private entities, it's their business.
From Monty Python in Life of Brian: âoeAll right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?â
- in the fight between governments and individual entrepreneurs any government victory is a loss to the economy and society.
You're welcome to your own definitions of economic terms, but don't expect to be able to hold rational conversations with economists.
- who do you call 'economists' exactly? The witch doctors of the modern era, who only know one thing to fix all problems, how to operate the giant money printing machine and the zero adding computer?
I think you're just risk-averse, and attempting to imagine an economic system in which everyone is like you.
- really? Is that why I changed not only countries (6 times) but even continents 4 times while building my own companies from ground up? Hmmm. I think you just found a new definition for being 'risk averse'.
Inflation is defined by a rise in prices,
- wrong.
not the exchange rates with foreign currencies
- right.
Inflation is increase in money supply. Prices rise and fall, they don't 'inflate' or 'deflate'.
Money supply is only one input into inflation, not its definition.
- wrong. The dictionaries used to define inflation correctly as expansion of money supply, then the government decided it needed to hide the inflation rate and so it pushed forward this concept that inflation is rising prices. This is wrong.
Conversely if demand is falling quickly, an economy will see little inflation even if the money supply is increasing (see: the U.S. for the past 3 years).
- wrong. Prices in USA are going up not as quickly as they must, but not because of the reasons you think. The reason that prices in USA are mostly steady is because US is exporting its inflation (money supply), to other nations, specifically to those nations, with who US has trade deficit.
Switzerland has currency that is constantly strengthening against all other currencies, they are no longer printing it and the unemployment is also only 3%. I bet when you say 'inflation' you are talking about prices and not money supply.
Persons loaning out money and banks loaning out money operates with two different sets of rules, thanks to banks being able to operate using "reserve banking". That is, they can loan out beyond what they have on ledger from deposits and such.
- that's how banks 'work' in presence of all the government moral hazard, free money and regulations. That's how they fail and then are bailed out by the Fed.
This is simply a disguised argument for a centrally planned economy,
- that's simply not true.
I am not telling you who to loan your money to, I am talking about government taking its hands off of where they don't belong - the economy. The rest is up to the market to decide.
Because the alternative--holding onto a currency that devalues--is even less desirable. Inflation is the stick that keeps people from sitting on cash for years, just waiting for that one perfect, guaranteed investment (which does not exist).
- yet this does not happen in Switzerland, with the appreciating Franc, it didn't happen in US in 19 century, where dollar was appreciating in value while competition was thriving.
The Market forces of the Pinkerton's used in Smashing workers heads?
- criminal law and business legislation are separate issues.
The Sherman Anti-trust Act?
- created to advance government power, who promoted one monopolist over another. By the time this was used on Standard Oil, that company wasn't a monopoly, and in either case, if a monopolist (like Alcoa Aluminum) is a monopolist, because he provides the market with cheapest/highest quality product and nobody can compete based on quality/price, then the law only hurts the market, since the market has chosen that monopolist over competition in that specific market niche. By the way, the tycoons of the past were helped by plenty of government ties.
The government has always had to regulate Free Market.
- no. Government always got its paws into the business side of things, where it clearly didn't belong, but its intervention always results in net-negative outcome for the market, regardless of the intentions.
- created by government regulations of the energy market and very partial deregulation, which ends up being worse than equally applied regulations. Regulations shouldn't exist in the first place, but if they do exist, they need to be equally applied.
junk bonds
- the largest asset bubble known in history is being inflated now in US Treasury bonds.
Mortgage back securities
- created by the FHA.
monopolies
- created, supported, bailed out and stimulated by government.
The problem with government regulation is NOT that there has to be regulation is that a lot of the regulation is either written poorly and harms the company unduly, or is written poorly and basically meaningless. I, for one, love that my food is regulated, my water is regulated, I can breathe better air, my kids get schooling, I can worship at my Church of choice, and I can own a Gun.
- I like government to stay out of everything. It can't do anything that you named there anyway and it only causes more resource mis-allocation, price hikes and inflation as well as corruption. I want my food to be left alone by all governments. I trust the companies who want to make profit from my business much more than I trust any government, and if I want certifications on my food, I want it to be done via competing certificate businesses, not corrupt government monopoly.
So I have presented that regulations are not bad in and of themselves, now can we discuss which regulations are harming companies?
- I disagree with every word in your 'presentation'.
What about our incredible regulations on export of any product?
- what about them? Why would I want government hindering trade?
Thats for Defense.. so we should keep it as is?
- what defense? AFAIC there is no such thing. There is only offense.
Should we leave the current system in place where Companies have to now prove they are fully funding the contracts they made with their own employees (called pensions)?
- no. There should be no enforcing of any specific pension plan, this must be left in the hands of employees, and what is really needed is income taxes to be 0, so that people have actual investment capital in their hands to care about their future.
What about road regulations, where Trucks have to be weighed going down highways?
- what about that? There must be no government involvement in roads at all, governments must sell their assets and pay their debts out, not subsidize the car industry and destroy any reasonable infrastructure and public transit effort in the process.
Bottom Line in this discussion: If the US does nothing to keep its middle class, it does not matter what will happen with China as the US will fade away as we know it.
- I am not sure who and what it is you suppose must 'keep its middle class' and in which way this must be achieved, but 19 century USA created the middle class - small business owner and professional worker, and it was done purely via market forces, not by government regulations.
The space shuttle was a brilliant piece of innovative engineering but utterly worthless to the economy.
- I don't see your point.
The governments of the world spent billions trying to go to the Moon. So US won and then what? All that money - SS money by the way. Down the drain (well, up into the sky really, but the net effect was the same.)
A steam powered washing machine that no one uses is of little consequence. An inexpensive electric one that everyone can own is of great consequence.
- electrical power use started in 19 century. Radio, phones, telegraphs, lights, etc.etc. Oh, and sewing machines were human powered and still they were a huge step forward in terms of efficiency and ability of the market to provide plenty of cheap clothing.
You know what, I'll take the word of leading economists over soem random guy on slashdot.
- that's your prerogative. To me the 'leading economists' of the world are as much shamans as the witch doctors of the yesteryear. They can keep pushing their propaganda all they want and you are more than welcome to keep your valuables in their hands.
credit card companies can only gamble this way because they have access to the Fed's discount window.
Get me that access and I won't give a shit about your creditworthiness either.
It is a perfectly legitimate use of credit to enable the purchase of something that I do not have immediate liquid capital to obtain.
- from POV of a consumer you are correct. From POV of an investor this is a travesty, but from POV of a gambler (like a credit card company), this is just about placing the bets right and keeping the interest very high.
why should I be unable to obtain a loan to enable me to do so now?
- it's not about you, it's about your creditor. If he is willing, it's in your best interest to take the loan. My point was orthogonal to yours, I am talking from POV of an investor.
If the bank will loan me money
- exactly. If a bank gives you money - take it. I am not disputing this, though I prefer not to be in debt personally.
Yes, eventually I have to pay the car or house loan back
- not anymore. Nowadays you just give devalued cash back or you walk away from the property, because you have no skin in the game - that's how many so called 'home owners' are living today. They didn't put anything down. They are living cheaper than they would while renting and if things go sour they can just walk. This is not a problem for a debtor.
Just because some people default on loans does not mean that the idea of principal + interest is some kind of foreign concept to the average citizen.
- that was not my point. My point is that credit exists in order to make more money, that's why somebody would invest - give a loan to somebody. To make more money.
- the entire concept of residential mortgage is faulty, because it lays on a premise that your house is an investment, and it's not. It's a money drain, not a money maker.
I'm sure what you meant to say was "...the economy of USA was also growing very quickly, (except for the Panic of 1819, the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, the Panic of 1873, and the Panic of 1893)..." These were steep recessions that made the recent unpleasantness look like a minor bump in the road.
- nonsense. US dollar went up in value by a factor of 2 from 1800 to 1913, so those 'steep recessions' did not derail the economic activity - business and production capacity.
The current depression is in a different ball park altogether, there is no production capacity, the consumers, government and government supported monopolies/oligopolies are highly leveraged and there is no way to pay back the debt, as there is nothing that produces anything that anybody would want to take in lieu of the debt.
What makes credit difficult is a volitile currency, not necessarily an inflating or deflating one. With an inflating currency, I must simply add my inflation expectations to the real rate of return I would like to obtain
- today US has about 10% annual inflation rate. Good luck with your investment strategy with these numbers.
Why on earth does it matter what a loan is being used for?
- this kind of thinking is used to provide kids, who go to colleges with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. It absolutely matters what loans are being used for, and you should know this by now, as it should have been made clear to you from the crash of 2008 if from nothing else.
It absolutely matters what people use loans for, and if I am an investor I only want to give loans to people, who can generate income based on that money, not to people who want to buy another beach property, confusing a government created asset bubble with real business.
If I can predict the amount of inflation, why not put my money into a depreciating currency? It's no more risky than a loan in a predicable appreciating currency.
- putting money into inflation means trusting the government not to
Except it wasn't. Overall the economic growth as best I could find data for was, population growth adjusted, lower in the 1800s than in the 1900s.
- 1800 started without washing machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, fridges, anesthetic, cars, airplanes, indoor plumbing, telephones, electric lights, telegraphs, radio, phonographs, safe plentiful food and medicine, etc.etc.etc.
All those things were created in the 19 century. They became the infrastructure, upon which the 20th century could continue creating. The 20th century though did push the statistical numbers up, like GDP, that's exactly because the Fed was created and started printing the cash.
Then there's all the recessions and depressions, as someone pointed out, there were a lot more frequent back then and covered more time.
- yet all that innovation still appeared in 19 century, despite all sorts of busts, which were necessary cures to the illness of resource mis-allocation.
You believe for some reason that small but numerous recessions and depressions are bad for the overall economy, and you are not alone in this mistaken belief. The governments of the world also believe this, but what they mostly believe is that when banks give loans to States (be it Greece or US, etc.,) that the bankers must always get their money back (IMF is a huge part of this racket by the way.)
This is nonsense, it's sick, it's wrong, it's broken, it's destructive and it's corruption.
There must be busts. There need to be recessions and depressions which are corrections to the resource mis-allocation that takes place during a boom.
The attempts by all of the presidents of US to avoid the recession happening during their presidency is what is killing the economy, because their way of fighting the correction is by creating more and deeper imbalances, which will hit harder next time.
you cannot outlaw something, for which there is real majority support, so by the time they did outlaw slavery, it was really an insignificant part of the overall economy found only in packets of it.