Just pointing out that RMS believes in leaving people free to run their lives the way he wants to -- not the way they want to. But you're right about RMS being non-compromising -- it has effects that limit the dispersion of his ideals.
Haha! You're so funny, Bennet. Do you seriously think that legislation exists to be rational? Laws are rational, but legislation is enacted purely through a political process, which is frequently irrational.
RMS would be a better advocate for freedom if he wasn't such a hideous leftist. He should read _The Road to Serfdom_, but as far as I know, he never read the copy of _Economics in One Lesson_ that I sent him.
Obviously, if that's the answer you want to come up with, OF COURSE you're going to fail to find the literature. Sheesh. You get the answer you're looking for, unless you're willing to change your mind. Are you?
As an example of the shallowness of your search, consider that it's EASY to find out that Libertarians believe that with private property and free markets, people can eliminate tragedy of the commons problems. For example, Libertarians point out that you don't have bums sleeping in a corporate park because it's privately owned, but you DO have bums sleeping in public parks because nobody owns them.
Still willing to change your mind? Or were you never so?
Where did you get THAT idea? I can protect my private property by myself perfectly fine. I guard it when I'm here, and I hire somebody to baby-sit my property (just like I hire somebody to baby-sit my pets) when I'm not. As it turns out, though, it's easier and cheaper to get YOU to pay to protect MY private property using a state. Since a majority of American are statists these days, that works fine for them to protect my property. But that doesn't mean that a state is necessary. Simply that it's cheaper for me when YOU pay to protect all 240 of my acres.
Thanks, by the way. I appreciate it. Just keep paying your taxes to protect my property.
Basically, you are an idiot if you think that any one school of economics can be right or wrong in an entirely objective scientific way. Because, on paper, the USSR should've been an economic dynamo, the problem of course was that people didn't act in the way their number's predicted... Errr, didn't you just prove yourself wrong? On paper, in theory, according to one school of Marxist economics, communism should have been great. Yet history has proven that school of economics wrong.... deadly wrong.
Mmmmm, not true. Some people want to double the minimum wage. That experiment has already been tried. A U.S. minimum wage law unintentionally applied to Haiti, which doubled the average wage. Great for workers, right? No, what it did was cause the Haitian lace industry to collapse, since they couldn't afford to pay workers that much. Lace production moved elsewhere in short order.
We KNOW that a too-large minimum wage increase will put people out of work. The theory "Minimum wage laws don't put people out of work" has been falsified, for sufficiently large wages.
Mmmmm, no, inflation is bad for everyone, including "bottom level earners". The problem with inflation is that it causes people to think they have more money than they really do. This causes them to spend more than they used to, which causes businesses to expand to meet this new demand. The cost of the things those businesses need goes up because of this higher demand. But... this leads people to realize that they really didn't have all that much money, so they stop spending so much. The business investment then has to be liquidated, which involves destruction of jobs, destruction of value, destruction of investment.
The economy heads south. Who gets screwed when the economy goes south? The bottom level earners.
Inflation is bad for everyone.
Now, as for the gold standard as a bulwark against inflation, it's useful when you have a monopoly currency to insist that it be based on a standard, like gold, or a basket of commodities. Or.... you can have competing currencies. You may say "that's crazy, you can't be converting from one currency to another" but you'd be wrong. The dollar has been pretty stable, so we've mostly used dollars. But in other countries, such as Turkey, people hold (or were holding, up to about a year ago) dollars because they held their value, especially relative to the Turkish Lire. Y'know what you could buy with a couple of million in TL a few years ago? A hamburger and fries at McDonald's, but no soda. The soda would run you an extra half million TL.
Minimum wage *is* the actual wage paid for the lowest levels of people participating in the system. It has been since the 1930's or thereabouts. This gives you a direct lever, at the bottom, to relate an hour's work to the purchase of various goods and services. That's what I'm telling you: At the lowest economic level, it took less work to see the doctor in 1965 than it does today. That's going backwards. It took less work in 1965 to buy a house. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work in 1965 to buy a car. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy a gallon of fuel. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to put your kid through college or trade school. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy heat for your home. That's going backwards. Life is getting more difficult for these people, not less difficult. That's going backwards. It is as plain as the nose on your face if you'll just stop and think about it for a minute.
Yo, shit for brains! You say "Libertarian principles are exactly why people are falling down the economic ladder in the first place." and then you say "Bailing out the people that make dumb decisions at the cost of hurting those that behaved more appropriately isn't a sound plan for future prosperity." Libertarian principles DENY bailing out the people who made dumb decisions.
But do, please, continue to criticize Libertarianism whilst remaining totally ignorant of it.
Next from hedwards, a review of Python: "It sucks! All that whitespace! I don't know how to program in Python, but I know that it sucks!"
This paper has been published today by the Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9181 Among other things, it agrees with me that the gold standard was not responsible for the Great Depression.
I think at this point I fear my government more than I fear any terrorist. They've succeeded in creating terror, but it's not them I'm terrified of anymore.
Oh, like an iPAQ sleeve? The original Compaq iPAQs were the size of a smartphone, but had sleeves which could add a compact-flash socket, or GPS receiver, or PCMCIA slot, or dual PCMCIA slot, or dual CF slots. No reason why you couldn't have a very small cellphone, without camera, stereo speakers, flipphone, etc, and add those features via a sleeve.
Do you know why we got away from the gold standard? Because it was one of the major causes of the Great Depression. Wow! In all my years on the Internet I've never seen anybody make such an ass of themselves. You have it EXACTLY BACKWARDS. The Great Depression was as bad as it was because the Federal Reserve inflated the currency in the 20's, and then deflated the currency in the 30's. Flexibility of a monetary system is good like flexibility of an I-beam is good.
Ron Paul votes against free trade laws because no law is necessary for free trade -- for free trade you need to *get rid* of protectionist laws. "Free trade" laws like NAFTA or CAFTA go on and on for pages when only one sentence is needed: "Congress shall pass no law respecting trade between nations."
Anything else stupid you have to say? Please, by all means, continue tarnishing your reputation.
I'm in favor of Ron Paul because he wants most government functions to happen at the state level, just as the Constitution requires. In that manner, the states can experiment with public policies, and we can find out what works best more quickly than if we try one thing at the federal level, wait ten or twenty years, decide that's wrong, and try something else.
but let's face facts. He's not going to win, I find it amazingly bizarre how many people say that they're going to vote for him even though he's not going to win. Or how many people say "I agree with him, but he's not going to win." Folks, if people want him to win, they'll vote for him and he'll win. Why is that such a strange concept?
If an ISP doesn't filter their outgoing email to make sure that it's own users aren't spamming, they WILL get blocked. I'm on a super-secret anti-spam mailing list which I can't tell you about, and everybody there cheerfully admits to blocking their own users' outgoing spam. It's necessary.
Without price information, capitalism doesn't work.
Without price information, markets scan't work. It's called the Calculation Problem. Socialists lost this fight about a half-century ago. No modern socialists seek to eliminate markets. No modern socialists advocate central planning.
This already happens. Hummers and other SUVs are "overweight" vehicles: over 3 tons. As such they pay higher tolls (or ought to, if the toll collectors are alert). Plus, they get worse gas mileage, and so pay a higher gasoline tax per mile travelled. That's one of the reasons why legislatures are starting to revisit gasoline taxation: plug-in electric hybrids aren't paying as much gasoline taxes as other vehicles of similar weight.
the all important *average commute time* does not appear to have been reduced by much if at all. It seems to be a big cash cow for the local authorities with little real benefits for the majority of city goers.
You, sir, are ignorant of economics. If you give me your name and address, I will buy a copy of Economics in One Lesson for you, and I only require that you read it. What you are missing here is that the *people* who are driving are different. The people who could afford to spend their time in traffic were driving. Now, the people who can afford to spend their money on traffic are driving. And, as you point out, the local authorities now have a new source of income, and do you think it's the poor who are paying this money? No, it's the well-off who are paying money to the government. And explain to me again how this is bad? The rich pay more in taxes, and you complain?? Sheesh, there's no pleasing leftists, is there?
Uh, charging everyone the same amount is simply fair. The reason Quakers did so well as merchants is that they charged all customers the same amount, without trying to cheat anybody. Why, you could even send a child to a Quaker store and they wouldn't be charged more.
Not necessarily. They might share rides, or form a cooperative, or ride when the congestion charge doesn't apply, or move, or... There's a gazillion solutions to every problem.
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Just pointing out that RMS believes in leaving people free to run their lives the way he wants to -- not the way they want to. But you're right about RMS being non-compromising -- it has effects that limit the dispersion of his ideals.
Haha! You're so funny, Bennet. Do you seriously think that legislation exists to be rational? Laws are rational, but legislation is enacted purely through a political process, which is frequently irrational.
http://blog.russnelson.com/economics/legislation-vs-law.html
RMS would be a better advocate for freedom if he wasn't such a hideous leftist. He should read _The Road to Serfdom_, but as far as I know, he never read the copy of _Economics in One Lesson_ that I sent him.
You haven't supplied a citation to put forward your case. Let me supply one for you to read. I suggest that you are not just wrong in the magnitude, you are wrong in the sign. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/opinion/10cox.html?ref=opinion
Obviously, if that's the answer you want to come up with, OF COURSE you're going to fail to find the literature. Sheesh. You get the answer you're looking for, unless you're willing to change your mind. Are you?
As an example of the shallowness of your search, consider that it's EASY to find out that Libertarians believe that with private property and free markets, people can eliminate tragedy of the commons problems. For example, Libertarians point out that you don't have bums sleeping in a corporate park because it's privately owned, but you DO have bums sleeping in public parks because nobody owns them.
Still willing to change your mind? Or were you never so?
Where did you get THAT idea? I can protect my private property by myself perfectly fine. I guard it when I'm here, and I hire somebody to baby-sit my property (just like I hire somebody to baby-sit my pets) when I'm not. As it turns out, though, it's easier and cheaper to get YOU to pay to protect MY private property using a state. Since a majority of American are statists these days, that works fine for them to protect my property. But that doesn't mean that a state is necessary. Simply that it's cheaper for me when YOU pay to protect all 240 of my acres.
Thanks, by the way. I appreciate it. Just keep paying your taxes to protect my property.
Mmmmm, not true. Some people want to double the minimum wage. That experiment has already been tried. A U.S. minimum wage law unintentionally applied to Haiti, which doubled the average wage. Great for workers, right? No, what it did was cause the Haitian lace industry to collapse, since they couldn't afford to pay workers that much. Lace production moved elsewhere in short order.
We KNOW that a too-large minimum wage increase will put people out of work. The theory "Minimum wage laws don't put people out of work" has been falsified, for sufficiently large wages.
Mmmmm, no, inflation is bad for everyone, including "bottom level earners". The problem with inflation is that it causes people to think they have more money than they really do. This causes them to spend more than they used to, which causes businesses to expand to meet this new demand. The cost of the things those businesses need goes up because of this higher demand. But ... this leads people to realize that they really didn't have all that much money, so they stop spending so much. The business investment then has to be liquidated, which involves destruction of jobs, destruction of value, destruction of investment.
.... you can have competing currencies. You may say "that's crazy, you can't be converting from one currency to another" but you'd be wrong. The dollar has been pretty stable, so we've mostly used dollars. But in other countries, such as Turkey, people hold (or were holding, up to about a year ago) dollars because they held their value, especially relative to the Turkish Lire. Y'know what you could buy with a couple of million in TL a few years ago? A hamburger and fries at McDonald's, but no soda. The soda would run you an extra half million TL.
The economy heads south. Who gets screwed when the economy goes south? The bottom level earners.
Inflation is bad for everyone.
Now, as for the gold standard as a bulwark against inflation, it's useful when you have a monopoly currency to insist that it be based on a standard, like gold, or a basket of commodities. Or
[Citation Needed]Minimum wage *is* the actual wage paid for the lowest levels of people participating in the system. It has been since the 1930's or thereabouts. This gives you a direct lever, at the bottom, to relate an hour's work to the purchase of various goods and services. That's what I'm telling you: At the lowest economic level, it took less work to see the doctor in 1965 than it does today. That's going backwards. It took less work in 1965 to buy a house. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work in 1965 to buy a car. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy a gallon of fuel. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to put your kid through college or trade school. That's going backwards. It took less hours of work to buy heat for your home. That's going backwards. Life is getting more difficult for these people, not less difficult. That's going backwards. It is as plain as the nose on your face if you'll just stop and think about it for a minute.
Yo, shit for brains! You say "Libertarian principles are exactly why people are falling down the economic ladder in the first place." and then you say "Bailing out the people that make dumb decisions at the cost of hurting those that behaved more appropriately isn't a sound plan for future prosperity." Libertarian principles DENY bailing out the people who made dumb decisions.
But do, please, continue to criticize Libertarianism whilst remaining totally ignorant of it.
Next from hedwards, a review of Python: "It sucks! All that whitespace! I don't know how to program in Python, but I know that it sucks!"
This paper has been published today by the Cato Institute:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9181
Among other things, it agrees with me that the gold standard was not responsible for the Great Depression.
I think at this point I fear my government more than I fear any terrorist. They've succeeded in creating terror, but it's not them I'm terrified of anymore.
Oh, like an iPAQ sleeve? The original Compaq iPAQs were the size of a smartphone, but had sleeves which could add a compact-flash socket, or GPS receiver, or PCMCIA slot, or dual PCMCIA slot, or dual CF slots. No reason why you couldn't have a very small cellphone, without camera, stereo speakers, flipphone, etc, and add those features via a sleeve.
Ron Paul votes against free trade laws because no law is necessary for free trade -- for free trade you need to *get rid* of protectionist laws. "Free trade" laws like NAFTA or CAFTA go on and on for pages when only one sentence is needed: "Congress shall pass no law respecting trade between nations."
Anything else stupid you have to say? Please, by all means, continue tarnishing your reputation.
I'm in favor of Ron Paul because he wants most government functions to happen at the state level, just as the Constitution requires. In that manner, the states can experiment with public policies, and we can find out what works best more quickly than if we try one thing at the federal level, wait ten or twenty years, decide that's wrong, and try something else.
Errrrr, only one of them is going to win, thus by your "logic" the press should only talk about one person -- the winner.
Hillary already has Anne Coulter's endorsement.
If an ISP doesn't filter their outgoing email to make sure that it's own users aren't spamming, they WILL get blocked. I'm on a super-secret anti-spam mailing list which I can't tell you about, and everybody there cheerfully admits to blocking their own users' outgoing spam. It's necessary.
Bing! We have a lucky winner!
Without price information, markets scan't work. It's called the Calculation Problem. Socialists lost this fight about a half-century ago. No modern socialists seek to eliminate markets. No modern socialists advocate central planning.
You refer to, of course, jitneys.
This already happens. Hummers and other SUVs are "overweight" vehicles: over 3 tons. As such they pay higher tolls (or ought to, if the toll collectors are alert). Plus, they get worse gas mileage, and so pay a higher gasoline tax per mile travelled. That's one of the reasons why legislatures are starting to revisit gasoline taxation: plug-in electric hybrids aren't paying as much gasoline taxes as other vehicles of similar weight.
You, sir, are ignorant of economics. If you give me your name and address, I will buy a copy of Economics in One Lesson for you, and I only require that you read it. What you are missing here is that the *people* who are driving are different. The people who could afford to spend their time in traffic were driving. Now, the people who can afford to spend their money on traffic are driving. And, as you point out, the local authorities now have a new source of income, and do you think it's the poor who are paying this money? No, it's the well-off who are paying money to the government. And explain to me again how this is bad? The rich pay more in taxes, and you complain?? Sheesh, there's no pleasing leftists, is there?
Uh, charging everyone the same amount is simply fair. The reason Quakers did so well as merchants is that they charged all customers the same amount, without trying to cheat anybody. Why, you could even send a child to a Quaker store and they wouldn't be charged more.
Not necessarily. They might share rides, or form a cooperative, or ride when the congestion charge doesn't apply, or move, or