At 12/24/12 10:58 AM, Camarohusky wrote:At 12/24/12 01:30 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Unfortunately people are simply not prepared to talk about the effect heritable traits could have on inequality. To them it's nothing but racist-pseudoscientific-blasphemy.Not at all. I...
Wasn't referring to you explicitly. But just look at the way that people treat a book like the bell-curve.
At 12/21/12 05:16 PM, GrizzlyOne wrote: Isn't the basis of it taxing the rich to help out the poor? What's so bad about that? correct me if i'm wrong about that, but I've researched it and that's what usually comes up.
Are you defining socialism as the taxing of people of higher income for people of lower income? or are you talking about that as an aspect of Socialism that is seen as most objectionable and hence worth discussing.
At 12/20/12 04:33 AM, thedo12 wrote:At 12/19/12 11:40 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:
Actually its pretty interesting although IQ dose correlate with high income, it doesn't correlate with how likely your business is likely to be. Entrepreneurs with average IQs are just as likely to succeed as Entrepreneurs with high IQs. So the whole high IQ = high income is mainly based off of increased ability of the jobs there able to do that lower IQ people can't and how much better they do at there job then lower IQ not how great they are at starting a business.
That said, that there is a heritable element to wealth acquisition does not mean non-heritable elements ought to be ignored, any more than would the opposite be true.
Sorry I didn't see this the first time.
Entrepreneurship is probably not very well related to IQ, or at least the aspects of cognitive ability that IQ tests tend to measure. However since most people are not self-employed and most people do not [and in all likelihood could not] start their own businesses, the fact that having a high IQ opens up jobs to you that would otherwise be impossible is of relevance.
Unfortunately people are simply not prepared to talk about the effect heritable traits could have on inequality. To them it's nothing but racist-pseudoscientific-blasphemy.
At 12/20/12 05:14 PM, Revo357912 wrote:
Actually its pretty interesting although IQ dose correlate with high income, it doesn't correlate with how likely your business is likely to be. Entrepreneurs with average IQs are just as likely to succeed as Entrepreneurs with high IQs. So the whole high IQ = high income is mainly based off of increased ability of the jobs there able to do that lower IQ people can't and how much better they do at there job then lower IQ not how great they are at starting a business.Not only that, but if anything I see a high IQ having a better chance at blocking chances for one to be really rich, since High IQ parents would be more likely to meet in college, urge their children to go to college, and get careers that limit how much you earn. Yes, it would be higher income, but not a rich income. That's the double edge sword of a business; it can make you rich, or it can break you poor, or simply leave you in the middle.
Well I'm not talking about the top 1%, I'm really talking about the top 25%. The upper middle class, or as Charles Murray calls it, the super-zips.
Though I do think that there likely isn't a single person in the top 1% [Barring inheritance] that isn't on the right side of
I remember an investor saying that the future will divided between two classes, the upper class who tells computers what to do, and the lower class that gets told by computers what to do.
My Turn
1. Progressive
Believes 1. In an inexorable upward march of history 2. Someone keen to use the force of law to solve social problems.
2. Rights
A dishonest shorthand for saying that members in society ought to have X, with normative force attached.
3. Freedom
Can either mean a kind of non-violent permission to do as one pleases so long as one's actions are not aggressive, or a total removal of all moral and physical restraints to action.
4. Equality
A and B have X equality when they are identical with respect to X. To describe two things as equal generally tends to omit what sort of equality is meant. In normal speech this is acceptable though in politics it can really muddle things.
5. Political Correctness
1. A doctrine that treats notions of essentialism as evil on the grounds it will lead to a second holocaust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism
A simpler way to explain 1. is the idea that everything and everyone is interchangeable. Therefore invoking categories such as Race, Gender, etc. As having *essential* characteristics is blasphemy.
2. Anything that a politician would be permitted to say. Generally because it is anti-essentialistic.
6. Partisan / Ideologue
Someone who treats party affiliation as having primary importance.
Someone who treats notions of ideas and ideologies as having primary importance.
7. Imperialism / Colonialism
Imperialism usually refers to the control of the state by one group of a self identified different culture from another group. There is a matter of subjectivity with whether something is an empire depending on notions of cultural similarity. One man's nation may be another's empire.
Colonialism refers to the settlement of one area by people from another area, which is why one can speak of the moon as being colonized, rather than speaking of having a 'lunar empire'
8 Socialism / Communism
State control of the means of production or at least the major industries. Today republicans have debased the word to the point where it's more synonymous with general feelings of "big government-ness"
9. Regulation / [A] Control
A mechanism which promotes regularity / stability in a given sphere.
An attempt by force of law usually with the professed goal of acting as a regulation, and usually called a regulation as well.
10. Tax
confiscation of wealth under a general threat of physical or financial reprisal, in a manner that is legally sanctioned. In contrast with extortion which is it's illegal counterpart.
11. Moderate / Centrist
Someone who fashions themselves roughly in the center of where they perceive the two extremes in political opinion are at a given time and place in history. Keeping in mind that politics like the universe has no real center.
12. Extremism
Taking positions outside of what is declared as acceptable
or
Engaging in anti social behavior.
13. Racism
A way to accuse someone of supporting slavery, the holocaust, or Jim Crow through subtle manipulation of language. "Race hatred" can legitimately be defined as hatred of a race or hatred of someone because of their race, but it is often the case that people who accuse other's of racism cannot get away with accusing the same people of race hatred because the falsity of it would be too obvious.
14. Feminism
A movement aimed at the collectivization of female sexual power in the hands of women as a group.
15. [The] Economy
A network of exchanges of desired tangible and non tangible things.
16. War
A violent conflict between two states
17. Politics / Public Policy
Conflicts over ostensible control of the state
public policy on the other hand is the actual laws that are enforced. Politics without public policy is the new normal of today's Democracies.
18. Democracy
A system of government which preports to be 1. Generated by the masses 2. Approved by the masses 3. acting on the interests of the masses, the exception to this is the more Nazi Definition of democracy which is a government that relies on parliamentary representation.
19. Science
The accumulation of information based on a procedure that relies on repeatable, testable, and falsifiable hypothesis. Peer review is useful insofar as it serves the functions of 'repeatable' and 'falsibiable' but the emphasis on peer review ignores the fact that peer review could refer to the review on doctrines of the holy scripture by peers of priests, having things being being reviewed by peers as a sign of proof without adhering to the above 3 principles of the scientific method is simply intellectual imperialism.
20. Religion
An organized group of people associated by a roughly common view on certain aspects of Metaphysics and ethics.
At 12/2/12 02:53 PM, JMHX wrote: Having the resources to manipulate the tax code goes quite a bit further than genetics in helping sustain earned and inherited wealth. Though the Marxist historians would have a field day with how this article seems to point to the wealthy as somehow genetically or intellectually superior to the 'common man.'
There's plenty of evidence that IQ correlates with life outcomes as much as if not more than socio-economic status.
Note I said IQ, not Intelligence. IQ Does not measure intelligence any more than a bench press measures strength. IQ Measures whatever IQ measures. What makes IQ Significant is that it is also generally accepted that IQ is a highly heritable trait, I.E. above average IQ parents tend to produce above average IQ offspring.
Charles Murray makes a rather interesting argument that because people are now choosing their partner more and more on the basis of intellectual attainment [i.e. marrying people they meet in college rather than in their neighborhoods], you will see a kind of biological stratification that will keep income inequality entrenched.
That Higher IQ tends to allow you to have a higher income does not mean that someone with an IQ of 160 will necessarilly earn more than someone with an IQ of 125, I'm sure there are other psychological traits [also likely heritable] that increase or decrease one's likelihood to become in the upper income strata.
I know one such behavior is time preference. The more forward thinking you are, and the more willing you are to defer present consumption for the sake of greater future consumption, the higher the likelihood that you will earn more than your peers.
That said, that there is a heritable element to wealth acquisition does not mean non-heritable elements ought to be ignored, any more than would the opposite be true.
are we talking about mass shootings or murders committed with firearms generally?
At any rate if we're dealing with deterrents to acquiring firearms as a means to preventing mass killings, we're assuming the ban is comprehensively effective enough that the deterrent to acquiring a firearms deters the mass killing.
If a firearms ban makes obtaining a firearm systematically more difficult, but not impossible or near impossible, then the ban would in all likelihood be ineffective at deterring these kinds of killings, since the perpetrator in question usually is either willing to face life in prison or death for having did what they did.
The mere fact that the weapons were obtained in legally in the majority of cases is not proof that the mass killers would be unwilling to undergo the difficulty of obtaining a firearm illegally. The contrary is sort of like saying that just because a mugger prefers to rob his victims without actually inflicting extreme physical harm upon them is proof that if he didn't have the option of mugging them 'peacefully' he would never take to mugging at all. And i would assume most mass killers prepared to risk certain death or life imprisonment would not be persuaded by what would very likely be lesser penalties associated with owning a gun.
The question *then* is the likelihood of state authorities preventing a mass killing by finding out that someone was trying to obtain a firearm illegally and stopping the individual in question *before* they're able to do the deed.
Also If the firearms ban makes obtaining a firearm practically impossible, then the next step is determining if the absence of the ability to use a firearm actually deters the killing. I.E. would our mass killer be content to use a knife or bomb. And then we have to determine whether or not those things can be put into the category of -systematically impossible to obtain-
But all of this analysis narrows the focus down to mass killings. It ignores the effects a firearms ban would have on other forms of killing/robbery
If you're trying to do something mildly criminal, a heavy gun ownership penalty, and the unwillingness of the would-be criminal to use any other method but a firearm would deter the crime. But if the crime is of a serious nature and the criminal is hell-bent on performing the deed, it becomes more difficult to make the penalty associated with owning a firearm more onerous than the actual crime. If the penalty of gun ownership is not sufficiently onerous then you basically have an odd situation where you're anticipating that the threat of a heavy penalty won't deter the crime, but a smaller penalty on top of the heavy penalty will.
I had thought the commonplace definition of slavery was a situation where an individual is legally defined as the property of another person, to be utilized in the same fashion as any physical object legally owned by an individual.
Of course you can have more poetic definitions of slavery that permit
At 12/7/12 02:48 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Stuff
It's strange because Schiff's data contradicts [at least it seems that way] what had been said earlier about tax distributions.
My impression of the US Tax System was that a much greater percentage of Americans pay the top marginal rate than before, and the effective tax rate, while having gone down slightly, did not really compensate for that.
At 12/4/12 10:56 PM, JMHX wrote:At 12/4/12 10:38 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:
.
So in short, disregard the capitalist model. If I stop thinking of returns (the means by which we measure the prospects of an investment) as a means of determining whether something is an investment, you might as well also call for the complete closure of the stock markets of the world.
I regard this as the crux of our disagreement. [I think what is said here subsumes the points you made in the paragraphs above, maybe not] I understand that to the perspective of an investor whether they lend money to someone to start a business, or lend money to someone to go on vacation, that either is an investment in their eyes if they know with high to perfect confidence they'll get their money back. I get the impression the reason you think I have trouble calling what the government does as investing is because I think they won't be paid, and *therefore* it's not an investment. [Expected response; No the reason I think you have trouble calling it an investment is because you're stupid]
Similarly if I promise someone a 10% return on their money over a given period of time, and get that money by pickpocketing strangers on the street , or by getting additional people to put money into my program [i.e. pyramid scheme], the original person can be thought to have 'invested' his money in my program, because the only thing that goes through his mind is what the returns are and what the probability is that the promises will be met. If my activities don't interfere greatly with the economy I can always operate on the assumption that there will be larger numbers of people with bigger wallets, plus the fact that I've been doing this successfully for one to two hundred years, and other places have done it successfully for as long as they've been around should only add to the confidence that this is all good and sound.
on an arbitrary amount of social security taxes even if NO ONE in your generation, including you, paid into the system to begin with, as long as there is a working generation able to pay the taxes.Or, as I've repeated to your repetition, a growing economy.
The Federal government can guarantee that it will try to raise the taxes necessary, it cannot guarantee a growing economy, as evidenced by the "New normal". And it can guarantee that the taxes will be collected better than any Government on the planet at this time. Certainly the tax levied on social security and the historic increase in payroll taxes also highlight that the certainty comes from the ability to tax, rather than unconditional population and economic growth.
If the *method* [not the level of returns, or the certainty that is associated with treasuries] whereby an institution piggy-backs on a growing economy or a growing population [or some combination of both], in order to meet future obligations is seen by correct and established views on the matter as being an investment, then hats back on, I'm an idiot.
But I will call at least call it the soundest pyramid scheme that could ever feasibly be constructed.
At 12/4/12 11:05 PM, JMHX wrote:
The bank run was not caused by an "expansion of credit prior to 1907." It was caused by a massive natural disaster that caused businesses and individuals who owned property in and around San Francisco to call in their insurance policies at the same time. The inability of San Francisco banks to deal with the sheer scope of redeemed policies (since, contrary to your fantasy world, at no point in actual American history did banks have 100% of their claimed deposits on hand at any one time) caused them to fall. This brought in re-insurance agencies from the West and East Coasts, much like the financial collapse of AIG in 2007.]
"Since, contrary to your fantasy world, at no point in actual American history did banks have 100% of their claimed deposits on hand at any one time." -- I never said this. It should have been implicit that this was precisely what did not exist when I spoke of banks suspending specie payments.Bank runs are usually triggered by something, but the bank run is only a problem when you have maturity mismatch. The economic dislocation of the earthquake would have occurred either way, but the problems caused by the banks borrowing short and lending long would not.
I don't think anything will make you change your mind, because that's not how this process works. Not even living through an event very similar to but infinitely less bad than the 1907 Panic (I'm talking about the 2007 financial crisis) has alerted you to the historical comparisons or the lessons we've learned. There is a REASON why our systems changed following that 20th Century Panic. You just have no interest in actually combining pieces of information into a novel opinion, and you most likely never will.
This being related to your "not a depression paragraph" -->
I'm sure you see it as a naive and sophomoric perspective and all of what I'm about to say could be incorrect on all grounds. But here I go: I see every time a financial crisis occurs, the central bank moves to ease things as to allow the process whereby banks lend money long and borrow short continue, for the sake of growing the economy. It looks now as if the US and several other countries at the point where no amount of central bank policy will get financial institutions pushing debt levels higher. As such I then get the impression that there is a natural limit to how far this activity can go before the trend is forced to reverse, in the form of debt deflation. If I'm not also mistaken most economists regard debt deflation as a bad thing. I perceive a debt-deflation-to-end-all-debt-deflations as worse than periodic bank runs.
This video more or less outlines my thinking on banking, It's Salman Khan so I don't think it's too conspiratorial for your tastes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SAMey9Gl5I
And again my saying this or my posting of the video is not to convince you of anything. But the only way to change someone's mind on an issue is to figure out the specific reasons for why they think the way they do. The reasons could be pathological [I.e. I could hold these positions for pathological reasons] or not. If you know the reasons why they're being held your ability to change them is enhanced.
That is of course if your objective is to change my mind on the issue. It might not be.
But if it is, one other suggestion, If you have articles you think I ought to read to establish that more thoroughly then supply them. If it's not worth your time it's not worth your time, but It's probably involves less foaming at the mouth by you than what you're currently doing requires. [You might be angry because I sound condescending, I'm not trying to be]
Back in an hour hopefully.
At 12/4/12 10:13 PM, JMHX wrote:At 12/4/12 10:10 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:I see "reading the actual history surrounding the events" is not going to work with you. Never let history get in the way of a good opinion, I suppose.
By 1907 a growing public might have wanted some way to ensure that they got 'their money back' -- while most certainly the majority of Banks wanted a way that they could engage in fractional reserve banking without fearing about any REAL negative consequences.
Is that a comment on this particular sentence or to everything? If the former I don't see what is wrong with what was said. In fact I wasn't even aware of the fact that I was contradicting your account, except for my unwillingness to make a statement like "after 1907 America became enlightened and understood the need for a central bank and a fiat monetary system". And of course since I wasn't aware
There's the "Facts" --> which should really be called observations since 'fact' is an overused and loaded term. And then there is the analysis of said observations.
So to break things down;
1. There was an expansion of credit prior to 1907 [most always a prior condition for a bank run], then there was a bank run. The bank run caused banks to go out of business for having expanded credit recklessly. Does any of this contradict what I or you have said? If so I'm not aware of it.
2. You seem to say "Establish a federal reserve and a fiat monetary system to prevent bank runs" --> you're correct that doing the former will cause the latter. This is also the opinion of the vast majority of economists who cover this issue, the vast majority of historians, it is what is taught in Highschool American History courses [I know this because I took AP American History] and in all other respects is the dominant view.
3. I hold that the consequences of fractional reserve lending are worse in the end than the bank runs themselves. [In part because, in my analysis of the events, the former causes the latter on top of other things] So establishing a system that makes it possible for banks to engage in more of it without facing any consequences is bad. I did not make a heavy case for this and I will not until two things happen; #1; You understand why if someone holds this view they will hold antithetical prescriptions to yours #2; You demand that I make a case for it.
4. None of what I believe relates to a lack of knowledge of particular events, at least not the ones which you have stated [Because I already knew every historical data you mentioned beforehand]. If you think stating more event information will help me change my mind then by all means supply said information. More information could change an * analytically* perspective on what is worse for the economy; bank runs or fractional reserve lending, but historical data is always filtered through a lens of 'notions on how the world works'
This will be my last post for today Btw.
At 12/4/12 08:46 PM, JMHX wrote:At 12/4/12 08:31 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:....which they are. God damn, are you allergic* to actually researching anything? Payroll contributions to Social Security go into a trust fund, where they're converted into government-backed interest-yielding securities. They bring in about 4% or so a year in earned interest on contributed funds.
Because [from my impression of your post] You're treating social security taxes as 'invested' in something... rather than simply inserted into a rube goldberg machine where the ultimate outcome is "Gen 2 and 3 Taxed to pay for Gen 1"
interest which comes from other *taxes* --> It's tax dollars being spent to buy pieces of paper which promise the recipient interest payments which are collected in taxes from the younger generations payroll/income taxes.
*Functionally* It would be no different if his tax dollars were thrown in with the rest of the governments revenues, spent on things, and when our baby boomer retired, Gen X and Gen Y workers's taxes were collected to pay for it.
And functionality is all that matters when defining things as one thing or another. But the only way for you to see this is to stop thinking about *returns* as the means to determine whether something is an investment in the same way that lending money to a company to grow it's business is an investment, or getting job training is an investment.
The money being put in the 'investment' is not actually related in any way to what the returns on it promise. The government's buying of it's own treasury does not do anything per-say which would allow it to reasonably ascertain that it could get a 4% return on whatever the level of IOU it purchased from itself. It can promise a return of 4% if it can raise the taxes necessary to refund it, is the ability of the government to raise taxes determined by how much money it took from a previous generation of workers
Or to put it another way. The Government could give you in old age a 4% return on an arbitrary amount of social security taxes even if NO ONE in your generation, including you, paid into the system to begin with, as long as there is a working generation able to pay the taxes.
If you want to prove that SS is an actual investment then you would need to demonstrate how the social security taxes paid by current retirees were essential to the ability of the Federal government to tax current generations. They are not, and this is evidenced by the existence of Welfare; which is basically social security except with different parameters and fewer pretensions.
Just because something has a rate of return does not mean it is not an actual investment [an actual investment as opposed to a pyramid scheme] -- Pyramid schemes promise rates of returns for money that it put in to them, but the actual money put into them has no specific relationship to the returns promised, [I.e. initial investment goes wherever, and the returns are acquired by getting more people to pay into the system, which in our government scenario is tax payers] which is partly why they're so enticing to people at the beginning.
Also Sorry for being repetitive.
At 12/4/12 08:11 PM, JMHX wrote:
So what you're saying, as far as I can tell from two attempts at this, is that the Panic of 1907 and the waves of bank closures and financial instability it caused was an optimal and expected benefit of the gold standard? Because it seems to me that whole gold-based Panic turned a lot of people off to the idea of basing everything tightly against gold.
Well of course it would. Under what I consider to be ideal circumstances, a bank that issues more bank notes then it has in deposits is basically engaged in an illegal activity which shouldn't occur in the first place. In the previous century state chartered banks got away with this by being permitted by the Government to suspend specie payments until they could get back the loans they had made to refund the depositors.
That they were allowed to do this should explain why banks repeatedly engaged in fractional reserve banking. The answer to "why do X if X will lead to a bankrun and then a bank going out of business" seems systematically more probably as "Because they don't expect they'll actually go out of business given what the laws and systems are" than the popular alternative "because greed"
By 1907 a growing public might have wanted some way to ensure that they got 'their money back' -- while most certainly the majority of Banks wanted a way that they could engage in fractional reserve banking without fearing about any REAL negative consequences. Hence the idea of a lender of last resort. You see this as good because it has eliminated the problem of the bank run. I see this as a bad problem because it has eliminated the problem of the bank run given birth to the problem of massive expansions of credit.
I'm also operating under assumptions about spelling and grammar. If you're going to pull a leanlifter and attempt to invalidate the entire economic system because it's DIFFERENT TODAY than it was in the 19th Century, I don't know what to tell you man.
If I sounded like I was criticizing you for holding a particular position without saying why that position is wrong I apologize.
Reading it a second time I feel stupid, because there's really no way you would have known what I meant, and it sounds condescending.
The assumption I referred to is fractional reserve lending. If you operate on the assumption that banks should be permitted to engage in it, then abolishing the gold standard makes FRB much easier and allows for the government to engage in policies that prevent banks from facing immediate obstacles to lending out depositors money as much as possible.
If you do not support the institution of fractional reserve banking, for whatever reason, you don't want 1. A central bank and a lender of last resort 2. An implicit or explicit bailout guarantee 3. Any form of depositor insurance 4. A fiat monetary system 5. suspension of specie payments in the case of a gold standard or other metallic money standard.
Also fractional reserve lending is not something unique to the post-fed, post-gold standard, post-TBTF-doctrine Era, however with each change made in the monetary system it has allowed for ever larger expanding of credit.
We'll probably find out within the next 5-15 years if my fears about FRB are unfounded or not.
At 12/4/12 08:27 PM, Warforger wrote:
Well yah, but then why not talk about their past? I mean both Cain and Romney had very impressive personal lives that would have easily made even their opponents have to talk about them with respect. I mean I guess this would make some people like Palin get shot down faster, but seriously these people weren't some scumbag party insiders they're people who worked hard and achieved alot and they don't even try to show it off. That's moreover what seems to bother me.
What would he have said?
1. I have high levels of Academic Achievement? <--- Not popular around conservatives and EXPECTED among liberals, thus of no benefit either way.
2. I worked for the federal reserve
3. I'm really Wealthy <--- Cain might have been smarter than Romney in this regard, Romney should have known that flaunting his wealth would have gotten him nowhere.
When you're running in a primary the rules differ from general elections, at least according to political scientific theory, for what that's worth.
At 12/2/12 09:20 PM, Feoric wrote:At 12/2/12 07:53 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: The point of mine that you need to address is the issue that interest on treasury bills comes from the only source of revenue the federal government has; taxes. [Aside from selling assets held by the federal government] The USFG is not a private corporation that pays it's bond holders with a proportion of its profits. And that was the central point of the link I provided.Right, I know this. I'm trying to find out what I said that made you think I didn't.
Because [from my impression of your post] You're treating social security taxes as 'invested' in something... rather than simply inserted into a rube goldberg machine where the ultimate outcome is "Gen 2 and 3 Taxed to pay for Gen 1"
I'll put forward three theories.
1. Intelligent thinking and Intelligent communicating do not always go hand in hand. If Cain's job did not involve public speaking of the kind required of a politician, his intelligence.
2. Politicians must lower the intellectual caliber of their rhetoric deliberately in order to be understood by the lowest common denominator.
3. If the politician is a republican, the default assumption is 'here be stupid'
Mind you these are not mutually exclusive.
At 12/2/12 07:54 PM, JMHX wrote:At 12/2/12 07:47 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:This is what ended up causing the Panic. Economies aren't static things. They need the ability to expand as a means of absorbing economic downturn, which the prevailing gold standard at the time prevented. Had the government at the time been able to inflate the money supply beyond the gold limits, companies like Knickerbocker and most of the California banks would have had the means to temporarily meet the surge of gold calls they'd received. Instead, the inflexibility caused bank runs, bank shutdowns, insurance company defaults and a recession that very nearly bankrupted the United States.At 12/2/12 12:42 PM, JMHX wrote:The purpose of the Gold standard is to explicitly prevent instances where banks issue more receipts for gold than they have in reserves, rather than to allow it to continue in perpetuity [which as I've hinted towards, even under a fiat monetary system cannot occur]
Again I'm saying the purpose of a gold standard is to prevent banks from being able to simultaneously make contractual obligations to depositors allowing them to withdraw their money on demand and at the same time issue that debt to other poeple and other banks.
Of course if you *want* a fractional reserve lending system, and all the [presumed] benefits it entails, then obviously the gold standard hampers the ability of Banks to lend willy nilly and therefore should be abolished.
Think of it like a balloon vs. a test tube. If water rushes into one, it can inflate and handle the temporary situation. The other will shatter under the pressure.
You're operating under the assumption that a specific set of financial practices should be legally permissible.
At 12/2/12 01:44 AM, Feoric wrote:At 12/2/12 01:08 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Forgive me if I misinterpreted your link, but this *is* the impression I got from reading it.We're on the same page, but I think the confusing stems from me using the word "invest," so allow me to clarify.
Social Security has amassed a rather large trust fund in the form of interest-bearing treasury bills. This is a rather safe investment, as any holder of treasury bills knows, and so they can provide the Social Security department with funds for a significantly longer amount of time - nearly 75 years.
The point of mine that you need to address is the issue that interest on treasury bills comes from the only source of revenue the federal government has; taxes. [Aside from selling assets held by the federal government] The USFG is not a private corporation that pays it's bond holders with a proportion of its profits. And that was the central point of the link I provided.
At 12/2/12 12:42 PM, JMHX wrote: I'll address your post in longer form shortly, but one of the best-known disasters caused by the gold standard was the gold rush following the San Francisco Earthquake, when a mass run on gold bankrupted a ton of insurers forced to pay out claims in gold, as opposed to paper. It brought the Treasury to the brink of default and led to the collapse of the Knickerbocker, at the time one of the largest banks in the world and whose collapse led directly to the Panic of 1907, where not only gold but copper ended up in shortage.
The events of 1907 played a major role in the decision to launch a Federal Reserve, and it was the moment a lot of people began talking seriously about reconsidering the gold standard.
The purpose of the Gold standard is to explicitly prevent instances where banks issue more receipts for gold than they have in reserves, rather than to allow it to continue in perpetuity [which as I've hinted towards, even under a fiat monetary system cannot occur]
At 12/2/12 05:40 PM, Camarohusky wrote: This is exactly why the quest of bringing Democracy to the Middle East is a waste.
If Egypt can't handle the simple task of voting to support a Democracy, there is no way in hell places like Lybia, or Syria will be able to.
If the cultural disposition of a people is to have an Islamic theocracy with an unaccountable executive, then that's what 'democracy'will produce, and my impression is that the Egyptians got precisely the government they wanted, but I don't hold that view with much strength.
Of course that's also the danger of *uncontrolled* Muslim immigration in a western democracy.
At 12/2/12 12:59 AM, theburningliberal wrote:
There are a variety of reasons one could use to disqualify them. One (Fresco, I think) spent his life as a structural and architectural designer, and was self-educated. Basically the argument I was making is that it is hard to justify them as being philosophers and support their understanding of economic theory if they don't have a demonstrated capacity for understanding what came before them. The closest that any of those "philosophers" came was the first one (whose name I don't remember, but he had the MA in history). His master's thesis went into detail studying the historical context ofpolitical philosophy, but that is a very narrow part of what philosophy entails.
Many economists know absolutely nothing about Economic history.
Like is said I agree that the merits of their work don't warrant calling them philosophers or economists. But that's what it's about, the merits of the work, not the credentials.
As I also said, I subscribed to Molyneux's channel once. I did not get the impression that he was very thoughtful as a self-professed philosopher, however I think this might be a result of the fact that he makes his living off of donations, from his podcasts and other videos; if his work becomes to didactic or impenetrable it might harm his standard of living. His stuff is more psychology than philosophy, but that's what gets the views.
At 12/1/12 02:41 PM, Feoric wrote:At 12/1/12 02:36 PM, JMHX wrote: We call those Treasury Bonds, and they're amazing.@Iron-Hampster: I've gone more indepth about this here and the post directly below it.
The trust fund ammounts to treasury bills that collect interest
The social security "Trust fund" amounts to nothing more than treasuries, and if the government isn't actually running profitable businesses, this does *not* amount to the government actually investing in anything. The interest on those treasuries can only be paid for with taxes. There's nothing marvelous about this, it's just a rube-Goldberg mechanism.
You're probably not going to like this source, but at least the tone is not incendiary. I don't care about the Bias of a source, sources consist of two things, empirical claims and logical claims. Logical claims can be verified by the reader without intellectually authoritarian appeals. You're free to dispute the empirical claims, I would be half glad and half upset it you managed to do it, but that really ought to be done by appealing to other sources.
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-myth-of-the-social -security-trust-fund/
Forgive me if I misinterpreted your link, but this *is* the impression I got from reading it.
At 12/2/12 12:35 AM, theburningliberal wrote:
are Philosophers,No, they aren't. Most don't even have verifiable academic credentials, and those that do lack credentials in philosophy or economics.
I would agree that these people are not philosophers or economists, but not because of a lack of Credentials.
At 12/1/12 12:32 PM, JMHX wrote:At 12/1/12 11:50 AM, leanlifter1 wrote:LOL at an IOU promissory note ROFLMAO at people that trust in corrupted Government owned by the like of the Rockefellers.The thing I like most about reading Leanlifter's posts is how they've essentially been batter-dipped and deep fried in smugness. Here's this young guy posting on a small politics forum, who in a matter of one sentence and some leetspeak has convinced himself that the entire system of international finance is a big shell game created by a clique of conspiracy overlords in charge of the New World Order, and that the concept of the government-issued bond (one of the cornerstones of economics and banking since the days of Egypt) is some kind of shell game perpetrated on people by the elite.
But that's not enough. At the SAME time, the entire international monetary system is a lie which could easily be fixed by turning our object of idolatry from the paper currency into gold, which as we all know has never been responsible for inflationary or deflationary insanity (except for all of those examples where it HAS been the lead cause of both). It just fucking kills me. You read about people like this in the comments section of Glenn Beck articles, but you never expect to meet them.
For someone like me it can be as bad as the existence of the republicans. Why strawmen your opposition when you've got people to do it for you?
On the issue of inflation and deflation, the period in US History where there was a genuine gold standard is quite limited. Most of the 'free floating currency' You had Breton Woods first followed by a gold exchange standard. Even during the classical gold standard you had the problem of the government permitting the suspension of specie payments [a big no-no] In the United States you also had the problem of bi-metalism. Having your currency valued in terms of two metals, and the two metals having their face-value prices set relative to each other creates problems when the legal price does not correspond with the value of the metal.
The matter of central banking, at least in the US, being a conspiracy is a matter of how you perceive the word conspiracy. And it seems to me the tone has more to do with whether or not such talk of conspiracy is taken seriously rather than the content. So as far as I know, no one has disputed that the Federal Reserve was drafted by J.P. Morgan and other bankers at Jekyll Island, the affair was pretty secretive, and they "conspired" to change the Monetary system of the US in a way that they felt would benefit them.
On the issue of bonds, bonds have been around for a long time, just as "dollars have" but historically how they operate has changed. So for example in world war II the main borrower of US debt was the US Citizen. Now the main borrower of US Government Debt is the Federal Reserve OR some other foreign central bank.
Lastly As far as Stability is concerned. The imperfect Gold standard provided long run stability at the cost of short run stability. So from, say, 1800-1913, the Value of the dollar remained pretty much the same even though it could fluctuate wildly within a few years. I believe this is because of the tendency for a gold standard to want to contract The 1913 and especially post 1971 monetary system provides short term stability at the price of long term instability. [An economy that requires people to take on larger and larger amounts of debt to grow. Of course at SOME point the trend has to be reversed, since debt tends to grow faster than the actual economy.
1. My understanding is the economic situation in Several European countries is worse than the United States at present. Including the obvious ones, Italy, Greece, Spain, also Portgual, and France is probably going to join them.
2. If Federal spending exceeds the maximum historical rate of taxation as a percentage of GDP then odds are you are not going to be able to actually turn a deficit around. That maximum in the United States is 20%. Keeping tax rates constant, increased federal spending during a recession is probably going to reduce revenues as a percentage of GDP, given that federal spending is a component of GDP, and the private economy is shrinking. Raising taxes where it gets as close to that barrier as possible combined with spending cuts to bring it below the barrier is a task much tougher than what is considered reasonable political discourse.
3. The idea that SS would have worked fine if not for Dubya seems highly questionable to me, the fundamental nature of the program was that it relied on a particular level of economic growth or a particular ratio of tax payers to elderly persons. Since as far as I know it never relied on actually taking taxed funds and saving them, it was not a question of if but when it would have broken down. Increases in payroll taxes and reductions in benefits have occurred to slow down the time that the shift from revenue-generating to revenue-draining Entitlements occurred. The recession brought social security to that shift earlier than anticipated.
SS was quite simply an ingenious tool developed by Politician many decades ago to raise income taxes on lower and middle income Americans by nominally attaching the taxes to an outlay program. And no one has drunken that kool-aid more thoroughly than elderly conservative voters, ironically. The benefits the Social Security scheme had for federal coffers have dried up and it is likely the SS system will never generate net revenues again, not without continued increases in payroll taxes and reductions in benefits. [Defeating the purpose of the program entirely]
At 11/30/12 11:28 PM, Warforger wrote:At 11/30/12 11:00 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I am fairly certain Marx said the transition from Capitalism to socialism would be violent. You would have an emiseration of the proletariat, where concentrations of property in the hands of a few would proceed to such an extent that by the time Capitalism ended, private property would not really exist.He really wasn't that clear but he did say violence would be involved. He said there would be a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" but doesn't go into detail about it nor does he even say it would necessarily be led by a Communist party, just that it will happen.
No, no mention of a communist party. But communist revolutions have usually been lead by upper-class intellectuals, basically people with the same background as Marx.
At 11/30/12 08:28 PM, Feoric wrote:At 11/30/12 08:23 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: The fact is economics is Bullshit and inflation is never a good thing as it just postpones the inevitable reality that the economy is broken due to debt based fiat currency not in control of the people and backed by nothing but ignorance and lies. Inflation equals buy now pay later with interest.A low amount of inflation creates an incentive to either spend the money or invest it.
At this point the paralysis of private investment makes me skeptical of this. It seems that now the only thing investors do with their money is lend it back to the federal government.
I am fairly certain Marx said the transition from Capitalism to socialism would be violent. You would have an emiseration of the proletariat, where concentrations of property in the hands of a few would proceed to such an extent that by the time Capitalism ended, private property would not really exist.
But it was Lenin who came up with the idea of a revolutionary vanguard speeding things along, to deal with the fact that 'communist' movements were most popular in places where private property [READ; land ownership tied to use of the property rather than by mere declaration] didn't really exist.
Regrettably I can't provide sources, but the two things above were 1. What was explained to me in high school, mentioned briefly in a western civ class in college, and also what most of the non-mainstream sources I have listened to have said of communism.
If the republicans were true ideologues who cared more about upholding their nominal positions instead of scoring short term political points, they would realize the incredible advantage in basically telling the president and his party "We agree to let you do whatever you want with the budget, we will take no credit for it's successes and bear no blame for it's failures."
They will take the blame for whatever happens to the extent that they try to obstruct the course of the federal government, in spite of likely being able to *achieve* nothing in the long term. If, on the other hand, an unimpeded president and congress plunge the economy into the abyss at time-lapse speed, the issue of who is to blame will be settled.
A shame really.
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