If you imagine that the money for the bailouts comes from the rich people you despise, then you are sadly mistaken. Rich people buy tax breaks. Anyone making a million bucks a year who actually pays out anything close to their nominal rates has an incompetent accountant.
Are you going to back up these assertions or are you going to just re-state these fallacies over and over again?
There's no fallacy. How many more historical examples would you like? Start with North and South Korea.
Without regulation people are free to abuse others however the hell they feel like
That's where tort law comes in. If you've read my other posts, you'll find that I'm not advocating anarchy. There are certain specific tasks that government should do, like punishing criminals, providing national defense, and a system of courts for adjudicating disputes. What government should not do, is punish the creation of wealth. When it does so, you end up with everyone but the thugs living in dismal squalor (E.G, Cuba and North Korea.)
These companies, for all intents and purposes have already failed. The question at hand is whether to give them tens of billions of dollars of everyone else's money in order to avoid facing that fact. If we do so, then these three wealth-destruction machines will continue to absorb resources that can be better spent elsewhere.
It's not enough for people to simply be employed, they should be employed at some task that increases wealth. Keeping people on the payroll at any unprofitable company is no better than hiring them to dig ditches and fill them in again.
Without regulation people are free to abuse others however the hell they feel like
Try to grasp the difference between the rule of law, and the government intervening to reward some people at other people's expense. The former is what we create governments for, to secure our freedom. The latter is how governments destroy freedom.
Face it, the powerful have abused the weak throughout history.
Yes, they have: typically by forming governments and abusing the power they've seized.
Democratic governments mitigate that.
Only sometimes, and only when the people are willing to resist their government. See Dred Scott v. Sanford, Korematsu v. United States and Kelo v. New London for three examples of an ostensibly democratic government doing things you claim it mitigates.
libertarianism necessarily results in extreme poverty and deprivation
Guess again. Prosperity correlates directly to the amount of freedom we have.
the _vast_ majority of free market economists believe in the absolute authority of market forces,
The person I was responding to wasn't talking about free market economists, he was talking about economists in general. Regrettably, free market economists are a minority in the profession.
which when left unchecked have proved how spectacularly wrong they are
Free market economists have been proven right again and again. The great depression, the current inflationary debacle, the obvious contrasts between east and west Germany, North and South Korea, and India before and after abandoning central planning show that freedom is the way to go if you want a better economy.
You have that exactly backwards. Nobody abuses the weak more than governments, and government is the ultimate monopoly. The more power you cede to government (to save you from the scary rich people!) the less freedom you will have.
Exactly. Socialists have been making a show of their pretense of compassion for a century or more, while ignoring the obvious fact that freedom and the rule of law are what people need to improve their standard of living.
No, the shallowness I refer to is looking only at the effect on chrysler, while ignoring the effects of the misdirection of capital to Chrysler instead of to other people and businesses.
A better example of shallow analysis comes from people who simply jump to the conclusion that government intervention always turns out badly.
Show me an example of a government intervention in the economy which turned out well. You might want to read up on the Broken Window Fallacy first.
Besides failing morally, it also fails from a utilitarian standpoint. When a company fails, the market has shown that people don't want that organization to persist. Keeping it alive misallocates capital that can be better used elsewhere.
Freedom doesn't require justification. If you want to use force to impose your will on someone else, the burden of proof for the necessity of doing so lies with you.
Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Many of them understand mathematics just fine. The problem with economists isn't one of mathematics, so much as a problem of ethics. They tend to believe that economic problems can be solved by the application of government force.
Slashdot Mirror
Well somebody says that social security is a fraud, and I'm not taking this person seriously, big deal.
The social security scheme is insolvent and fraudulent. Sorry if you didn't already know it, but wishing otherwise won't make the numbers add up.
-jcr
Geez, doesn't suck the way /. put a gun to your head and made you click on the story?
Oh, wait.
-jcr
Are'nt you are saying that China used its money to help start the financial crisis?
More like, China got taken for a ride, and their willingness to keep buying US securities helped the bubble get bigger.
One upshot of this depression is that people everywhere, the Chinese included, are going to prefer hard assets to loan paper.
-jcr
If you imagine that the money for the bailouts comes from the rich people you despise, then you are sadly mistaken. Rich people buy tax breaks. Anyone making a million bucks a year who actually pays out anything close to their nominal rates has an incompetent accountant.
-jcr
Are you going to back up these assertions or are you going to just re-state these fallacies over and over again?
There's no fallacy. How many more historical examples would you like? Start with North and South Korea.
Without regulation people are free to abuse others however the hell they feel like
That's where tort law comes in. If you've read my other posts, you'll find that I'm not advocating anarchy. There are certain specific tasks that government should do, like punishing criminals, providing national defense, and a system of courts for adjudicating disputes. What government should not do, is punish the creation of wealth. When it does so, you end up with everyone but the thugs living in dismal squalor (E.G, Cuba and North Korea.)
-jcr
-jcr
These companies, for all intents and purposes have already failed. The question at hand is whether to give them tens of billions of dollars of everyone else's money in order to avoid facing that fact. If we do so, then these three wealth-destruction machines will continue to absorb resources that can be better spent elsewhere.
It's not enough for people to simply be employed, they should be employed at some task that increases wealth. Keeping people on the payroll at any unprofitable company is no better than hiring them to dig ditches and fill them in again.
-jcr
Thanks for that demonstration of the standard defense of the social security system.
-jcr
We call that the "General Welfare".
-jcr
Social Security is as unfair and unjust as any other Ponzi scheme.
-jcr
Without regulation people are free to abuse others however the hell they feel like
Try to grasp the difference between the rule of law, and the government intervening to reward some people at other people's expense. The former is what we create governments for, to secure our freedom. The latter is how governments destroy freedom.
-jcr
So taxing corporations in order to feed poor sectors of society is wrong?
Taxing anyone for any purpose other than performing the powers delegated to the government by the constitution of that government is wrong.
How very American.
I wish.
-jcr
stopping an avalanche pouring more snow on top of it
Or fighting fire with kerosene.
-jcr
Nah, it's the same old socialism. Robbing the productive to support the unproductive.
-jcr
Face it, the powerful have abused the weak throughout history.
Yes, they have: typically by forming governments and abusing the power they've seized.
Democratic governments mitigate that.
Only sometimes, and only when the people are willing to resist their government. See Dred Scott v. Sanford, Korematsu v. United States and Kelo v. New London for three examples of an ostensibly democratic government doing things you claim it mitigates.
libertarianism necessarily results in extreme poverty and deprivation
Guess again. Prosperity correlates directly to the amount of freedom we have.
-jcr
Justification means proving legality within a system of laws
Nope. Justification means to show or prove that something is right or reasonable. What you're doing is rationalizing.
-jcr
the _vast_ majority of free market economists believe in the absolute authority of market forces,
The person I was responding to wasn't talking about free market economists, he was talking about economists in general. Regrettably, free market economists are a minority in the profession.
which when left unchecked have proved how spectacularly wrong they are
Free market economists have been proven right again and again. The great depression, the current inflationary debacle, the obvious contrasts between east and west Germany, North and South Korea, and India before and after abandoning central planning show that freedom is the way to go if you want a better economy.
-jcr
You have that exactly backwards. Nobody abuses the weak more than governments, and government is the ultimate monopoly. The more power you cede to government (to save you from the scary rich people!) the less freedom you will have.
-jcr
Freedom lest the world be damned
Exactly. Socialists have been making a show of their pretense of compassion for a century or more, while ignoring the obvious fact that freedom and the rule of law are what people need to improve their standard of living.
-jcr
No, the shallowness I refer to is looking only at the effect on chrysler, while ignoring the effects of the misdirection of capital to Chrysler instead of to other people and businesses.
A better example of shallow analysis comes from people who simply jump to the conclusion that government intervention always turns out badly.
Show me an example of a government intervention in the economy which turned out well. You might want to read up on the Broken Window Fallacy first.
-jcr
Look up The Law by Bastiat. He explained it in considerable detail.
-jcr
jcr argues for heavy metals in your ground water,
Does pulling things out of your ass and claiming that someone else has advocated them work in your usual social circles?
-jcr
It's not justified in any case.
Besides failing morally, it also fails from a utilitarian standpoint. When a company fails, the market has shown that people don't want that organization to persist. Keeping it alive misallocates capital that can be better used elsewhere.
-jcr
Libertarian philosophy does not justify itself.
Freedom doesn't require justification. If you want to use force to impose your will on someone else, the burden of proof for the necessity of doing so lies with you.
-jcr
Moral imperatives are a function of the social system, there are no absolutes.
If you believe that, then I certainly don't want you for a neighbor.
robbing corporations to benefit the people (for example) can easily be justified within the system
Rationalization and justification aren't the same thing.
-jcr
Economists have no mathamatics training.
Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Many of them understand mathematics just fine. The problem with economists isn't one of mathematics, so much as a problem of ethics. They tend to believe that economic problems can be solved by the application of government force.
-jcr