John McCain vs Barack Obama Mega-Politic-Thread of super fun awesomeness.

[STRIP3S]

They have irrational fear that a nuclear warhead is on the horizon and about to land on their front porch.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Again, Capitalism is an ideology, like Communism, where every human being has to participate in a inhumane way. I know that in the book you read it worked perfectly, but well, that's a book and it didn't really cover metaphysics in an unbiased way.

I just noticed this and uh, im gonna split hairs

"Capitalism" was the term Marx gave to describe (very crudely) what he thought of as a system imposed on the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Seeing as how Marx could barely cobble together his own ideological plan for a communo-topia, it's no wonder that his attempt at describing the "capitalist system" fell short and lay wide open to refutation.

Free-market economics is not an "ideology", no more than biology or mathematics. Marx chose to ignore any sort of valid methodological process - often pulling conclusions from out of his ass - when he attempts to explain what's wrong and what needs to be done.

Conversely, economics did not emerge as some new ideas concerning the human state of affairs. Adam Smith did not 'invent' capitalism, he merely was the first to comprehensively attempt to identify and explain events and actions taking place around him. But Smith was by no means the first to ever perceive market forces, and certainly not the last.

Still not convinced? Well, here's something to ponder: how many of Marx's "theories" ever became "laws"? An economist generally learns two things first and foremost: the Law of supply, and the Law of demand. Economic theories are treated like scientific theories - rigorously scrutinized and tested. As far as we can objectively reason, market forces are as an inherent part of our lives as gravity and thermodynamics - which is why governments trying to regulate markets is as absurd as governments trying to regulate gravity or thermodynamics.

Noone is "inhumanely" forced to participate in the free market - it's just that market economies tend to develop because humans prefer liberty and prosperity over ideology. That's another mental slice of pie for you - if capitalism is an "ideology", then how come markets developed long before the advent of philosophy and even longer before the concept of a "marketplace" was even coined?

We then have to split some more hairs - you know, I find it odd that you're the one saying I have merely read "a book" when your own rhetoric would suggest that very notion. This time we must look at what you mean by "ideology" - the classic notion of "a set of principles", or the Marxist notion of the views imposed upon the proletariat by the "superstructure" of capitalist creation? If it's the former, moot point. If it's the latter - how does Marx then account for the fact that markets developed spontaneously, worldwide, and they were all so incredibly similar that the transition to a "global economy" was nearly seamless?

It sucks that Marx never cared to ground his ideas on solid logic - because then his followers would have a way of defending such stupidly simple questions.

Now, let me tell you about my ideology. That would happen to be "anarchism".

The reason many market processes are referred to as "laws" is because they have more than passed rigorous theoretical examinations and are overwhelmingly supported by real-world observation.

Now, it stands to reason - if these processes have been shown to be very real, very inherent aspects of human action, then I do not find it very "out of touch with reality" to derive further conclusions and implications from these axioms.

When deriving broader implications, the next level of conclusions form the basis of Libertarianism. Following the principle axioms of human action, Libertarians believe that the free market is a keystone of human freedom and prosperity - but they stop just short of regarding government as unnecessary.

Anarchists in the Rothbardian fashion were the first to fully develop and conceive of law and society as truly independent from - and better off without - a State.

At this point, it might just be a matter of time. It wasn't but a few years ago that Keynes' "New Economics" was still being hailed as a masterpiece that was superior than the "inherently flawed" free market. Today we find the last gasp of strict Keynesian ideology dying with Fannie Mae, the Lehman Brothers, WaMu and the rest - an event von Mises foresaw in the 1920's.

I've studied alot of economics, I've more or less covered the gamut. The works leaving the biggest impressions on me were Bastiat's "Economic Harmonies", Ricardo's "Principles", Menger's "Principles of Economics", Rothbard's "Man, Economy, and State", Mises' "Human Action" and "The Great Depression", Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" and "Law, Legislation, Liberty", and Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson".

Do I stop there? Nope. Hayek has wonderful advice:

The “practical man” habitually acts on theories that he does not consciously realize; and in most cases this means that his theories are fallacious. Using a theory consciously, on the other hand, always results in some new attempt to clear up the interrelations that it assumes, and to bring it into harmony with which theoretical assumptions; that is, it results in the pursuit of theory for its own sake.

I've read Keynes' "General Theory of Employment, Credit and Money", Marx's "Communist Manifesto", Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" and even Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

And that's just economics. If you want metaphysics - Aristotle? Locke? Hume? Hegel? Derrida? Not to mention quite a few of the economists listed above.

Science, math, logic - I've tackled what books I can, like Hawking's "Brief History of Time and Space" and recently Hofstadter's "I Am A Strange Loop".

I'll gladly explain to you what Marx's labor theory of value is, and then I will proceed to render his conclusion absurd. On the other hand, you haven't even grasped the fundamental differences between the methodological approaches to free-market economics and communism, and your sole criticism being - what? "your metaphysics is biased"? Well duh I'm going to be biased towards certain works and biased against others - in the same way that I am being biased when I choose to not drive my truck into a brick wall... sometimes, you just sort of know when a decision will not turn out very successfully. I'm not in the habit of believing in fallacies, I find truth is generally far more useful.

But hey... I could be wrong.

[Money]

WOW STRIP3S 7 POSTS IN A ROW, HAS TO BE A RECORD LOL

LOLZ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCkgtisIz5A

[Fluffz]

I just noticed this and uh, im gonna split hairs

I think what he tried to say and what i think after each of your posts is: You assume humans are without attitude, are intelligent, uninfluenceable and not corrupt. On top of that you deliver no reason to archive a perfect economy and ignore the price to reach such a goal. Furthermore our argument is not correct, no regulations would allow people to work together and hold enough power to actually regulate others.



Regarding that goverment bailout plan, isnt anyone bothered by the fact that the bubble emerged due to spaculations while gov argues to buy bad credits now and sell them when the situation gets better? Isnt anyone bothered even more about there being no way to vote against this action as an American?!

[MirrorriM]

I didnt catch the debate but did watch the summary of the debate on 2 different news channels. I found it interesting that on Fox, everyone said McCain was the clear victor (of course). Then on the other channel (Olbermann was the host), the guys also said McCain was more "solid" (I forget the exact word) on his points than Obama. They then went on to comment on how McCain had a demeanor that turns off voters, like not looking at Obama, and how charismatic and nice Obama was during the debate-- while fully admitting that McCain did better in arguing his points. "McCain did better in getting his points across, but Obama was the nicer guy." Shouldnt points be the most critical factor??

I realize this is a big ramble but it irritates me that they never admit Obama did poorly, but instead say "at least he was nice." How can you compare personality with substance to make a critical review? I understand looking at personality vs personality or substance vs substance, but mixing the two?

/end rant

Just FYI, I dont have a political side. I'm open to voting for McCain or Obama, I just havent figured out who yet. It seems both sides have a lot of negative qualities and I cant decide who is the lesser of 2 evils.

[Money]

i just dl'd it lol

mccain starts out with some sob story bullshit then whines about not feeling good, annoyed about to close it.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

I realize this is a big ramble but it irritates me that they never admit Obama did poorly, but instead say "at least he was nice." How can you compare personality with substance to make a critical review? I understand looking at personality vs personality or substance vs substance, but mixing the two?

My take on it is that they didn't say he did poorly simply because he didn't. It's not like he was bad, or said disingenuous things, he just didn't have the chutzpah that McCain showed at times. I listened to the whole thing, and I'm proud to say that "my friends" didn't come up once. I don't think McCain had a great showing, but yeah, I'd say that he did pretty decently.

Not to mention that you were listening to Keith Olbermann, the Anti-Hannity. He's halfway amusing, and I agree with him on a lot of topics, but he's completely a left-wing pundit.

[Jerome Scuggs]

I think what he tried to say and what i think after each of your posts is: You assume humans are without attitude, are intelligent, uninfluenceable and not corrupt.

Nonsense. I'll break this down into two parts.

First - the only assumption of human action in economic sciences is that of human action itself. Not why humans act - that is the domain of philosophy. The only thing I will ever claim as a non-refutable, inherent axiom is that humans do act. Though individuals do act, the reasons behind the actions can be wildly varying. For instance, look at two businesses: Whole Foods and Wal-Mart. Each company has a completely different set of beliefs behind why they do business - but they still do business, and both companies' activities fall completely within the framework of a market. That isn't to say, though, that all humans have a tendency to go and form businesses and markets and the like.

This is why I am always careful to check and re-check my ideas against reality. I never claim that man is the classic "homo economicus" of eighteenth-century ideals.

But I do know that humans act. And I do know that time and resources are finite. And I do know that human beings, on the whole, posses the unique ability of thought, choice, and decision-making (regardless if these thoughts and decisions are rational or not - people still have them). Which means: Every day, perhaps every second, humans are constantly making decisions. Even you, as you read this, are making value-judgements. You have some time to kill, but not an infinite amount of time, and the resources at your disposal are limited as well. So you decide you would prefer to sit down and use your available time and resources to read my post and then respond to it. And just like that - I have explained the way in which you are making economizing decisions, without knowing a single thought or belief going on in your head.

Second: Not only will I assert that market activity is valid regardless of individual human preferences - but I will continue on to say that the reason the market is the best paradigm for humans to exist is specifically because humans have wildly varying ideas and preferences. It is only a marketplace that can aggregate the gamut of decisions and actions. While the market may never achieve "perfect equilibrium" in the theoretical sense, markets in reality often times reaches as close to equilibrium as is humanly possible - but like we both agree, noone can read minds, and so it's inevitable that even the most rational, calculating businessmen can make too few or too many goods. But even if there is a miscalculation, individuals in the marketplace can quickly respond to, and adjust for, new information as it becomes available - a near impossibility in state-planned calculation.

So not only do I account for the wildly subjective views of the millions of individuals, I consider it one of the most vital reason as to why markets are superior to government planning. Governments by their very nature impose a rigid set of pre-defined value judgements - and disagreement with those principles often leads to undesirable consequences.

In the marketplace, if you disagree with Wal-Mart... then take your business to Target or hey, even Whole Foods. Because here's the beautiful thing: if you consider questions of ethics when you shop, then you can take your business to like-minded individuals. But sometimes you just can't stick to your ideals when you can't afford Whole Foods, and so some people shop at Wal-Mart. And the beautiful thing? Since the (unhampered) market leads to higher standards of living and increased purchasing power, there may be a day when Wal-Mart isn't as vital, because more impoverished individuals can now afford Whole Foods. That's not to say people shop at Wal-Mart only because they are impoverished. Me, I shop at Wal-Mart because it's five minutes away and they have a shitload of stuff. Yet I, too, manage to cleanly fit into the over-arching dynamic market process. In a free market, over time, Wal-Mart would likely shrink in size as its targeted customer base (low-income) shrank or sought more affordable alternatives - and eventually a new equilibrium would be reached that would prove to be even more beneficial to me, you, Wal-mart, Wal-Mart's customers, Whole Foods, their customers...

Ever wonder why Karl Marx wrote his manifesto in England? It's because life had become so enriched, and the marketplace freed people from primitive, bare-sustenance living. Go look at the literary contributions from Soviet Russia and compare it to the United States. In the Soviet Republic, I'm sure millions of individuals had amazing artistic talents and abilities that were never fully developed because they spent their days waiting in bread lines. I guess Marx thought that the body of human knowledge that existed when he was alive was "good enough" - because post-communization, that's exactly where human progress would end.

On top of that you deliver no reason to archive a perfect economy and ignore the price to reach such a goal.

I do not ignore the price of reaching... I'm assuming you're talking about the goal of "anarchism". If anything, the thousands of statists who thought that human life and human action could be controlled and regulated - they are the ones who routinely ignore the price of reaching their goals. I don't know how often you read these forums, but I try to make a habit out of pointing out when and where government regulation fails (here is today's stupid decision), and how the situations would have been far less disastrous had the government never legislated at all.

One thing that I have consistently been saying about the current financial mess: every day the politicians tried to pull strings to "stop" the meltdown is only exacerbating the situation even more. Had the Fed let the market slide into a recession around January, we would have seen a slump lasting perhaps 18 months - and many of the now failing or struggling banks could have had plenty of time to set up plans to minimize their losses and slowly bleed the bad credit out of the system, although quite a few would probably still take detrimental losses. But the Fed said they had it handled - and because of their actions, they caused the recent wave of sudden, widespread collapse that led to the largest bank failure in history and the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers. And instead of a "typical" recession (inevitable thanks to centralized, fractional-reserve banking), we might be looking at a serious, long, drawn-out period of stagflation akin to what Japan experienced in the 1990's - and that one lasted for almost ten years.

So yeah, I know the potential consequences of what I advocate. But I will assert that any other option will only cause worse problems. Not only will the problems be worse, though - but they will keep happening. And when a government experiences a problem, tries to fix it, and fails - very rarely is such a situation's outcome good. In many cases, the end result is fascism and alot of suffering.

Last thing - I'll never be able to explain how a free market would work. How could I? Like we have established, people are very different from one another. It's all about setting humans free and letting the productive juices fly.

[genocidal]

Watch the debate and formulate your own opinion rather than listening to morons without college degrees on FoxNews/NBC.

To me Obama was more solid on argumentation than McCain. He approached the debate just as a lawyer would and he was, at times, disarmingly efficient. McCain, on the other hand, relied much more heavily on personal stories, personal attacks, and appeals to his authority as an "old maverick of the Senate." Obama, by contrast, was much more direct and logical with his answers.

It really depends on what style you prefer I suppose. McCain did well, but I'm sure lay people thought he did much better than he actually did. Obama on the other hand was more intellectual and gentlemanly, which is how a debate is properly done but most people in the world think hurling insults over and over ("he's naive/inexperienced") and telling nice stories at the expense of substance wins a debate.

[paradise!]

Watch the debate and formulate your own opinion rather than listening to morons without college degrees on FoxNews/NBC.

To me Obama was more solid on argumentation than McCain. He approached the debate just as a lawyer would and he was, at times, disarmingly efficient. McCain, on the other hand, relied much more heavily on personal stories, personal attacks, and appeals to his authority as an "old maverick of the Senate." Obama, by contrast, was much more direct and logical with his answers.

It really depends on what style you prefer I suppose. McCain did well, but I'm sure lay people thought he did much better than he actually did. Obama on the other hand was more intellectual and gentlemanly, which is how a debate is properly done but most people in the world think hurling insults over and over ("he's naive/inexperienced") and telling nice stories at the expense of substance wins a debate.

YES.

Although I am 100% with Obama, i don't understand both candidates at times. Each candidate spews facts that to me are very severe. What people need to realize is that by not taxing the people we will remain where we are. IF you want affordable healthcare, yes your gonna have to fork over a bit more. But no one wants a repeat of Mondale vs. Reagan. After Mondale said he would do exactly what Obama would and save the ecnomy in the same way by raising taxes, Regan won by a landslide.

And yes McCain is too tied to his speech writers' rhetoric, I personally do not see his individual indentity, i simply don't know him. He has used personal attacks as a crutch to victory, why don't vieweres realize this is the only way he can win. He relied on only one thing in the campaign, talking and talking and not letting Obama talk, which is how it was at the republican primary debates. Against Romney, McCain interrupted him and simply continued talking even though Romney was trying to tell him he wasn't finished, he has no sense of individual rhetoric, and personally he simply cannot identify with the common man. He also toots his military experience, wtf?, if the people wanted a military man why isn't four star Gen. Wesley Clark in office? The man couldn't break 5% at the primaries. McCain was a private when captured in vietnam. Here McCain has no experience, what war hero? My left nut. And a Maverick? 90% with bush? come on now.

[STRIP3S]

WOW STRIP3S 7 POSTS IN A ROW, HAS TO BE A RECORD LOL

LOLZ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCkgtisIz5A

LOL

[Jerome Scuggs]

Here's an interesting article from 2004.

And here's another - from 2002.

I know it's lame to say "see, people with beliefs similar to mine predicted this would happen!" - but if you actually read the article, it's pretty damning. Why? Because first, there's no "doomsday"-type hysteria. These guys were predicting the housing bubble collapse to occur earlier than it did, and they expected a "typical" recession akin to the 2001 recession. So they were wrong on both counts... sort of. Because both authors make a very clear point: that it will happen ...unless the Fed continues to inflate the currency and otherwise delay the inevitable - which will only serve to make the inevitable far worse. In that sense, they were absolutely correct.

They identify the housing bubble. They predict it's crash - in fact, in the article from six years ago, the author opted to not predict when the crash would occur (there's no way he could predict exactly what the Fed would do to delay the recession) - but stated it would occur when Treasury bond rates reached 5%. Six years later, the crash occurs - and he was off by 0.02%. I don't know how specific these guys are going to have to be before someone thinks "hey, alright - maybe these guys are actually onto something", but right about here is where I would subjectively place that brightline.

They even describe how the Fed would move to expand credit and bailout companies that were "too big to fail". (Side note: if you're a business, and you learn that the Fed will guarantee you against loss if you're "too big to fail" - well, wouldn't you then set upon a process to rapidly expand, unsustainably, as to then become "too big to fail"?) They then go on to show how the bailouts would fail - and create even worse market distortions which would make the recession that much worse.

And it's not like these guys were particularly insightful or ahead of their contemporary "Austrian" economic counterparts. In fact, the reason they were able to identify this recession so early is perhaps thanks in part to Mises, who heavily criticized very similar moves taken by the Federal Reserve and our government and warned of the serious and crippling consequences of such heavy use of fiscal policy. That in of itself isn't too disconcerting - until you note that Mises was writing about this in 1929.

The fact that Austrian economists have been this consistent in their principles, yet equally accurate in applying them to two completely different periods of history, is something which I find very compelling. Quite frankly, it's a distinction that, as far as I know, no other school of economic thought can really claim. There are some economic schools that may share similar views on economics - but they stop at 'economics', whereas Austrians continue their criticisms into political and even philosophical territory.

So here is a school of thought that has managed to develop an astoundingly accurate body of knowledge on economic principles, and follow the conclusions to a larger set of ideas concerning other physical and meta-physical issues - all the while, remaining incredibly relevant and insightful.

Should I even mention Hayek, and his "Road to Serfdom"? The books reads like a generalized, non-specific history of modern governments and their path to increasing tyranny - except he wrote it over a half-century ago.

All right, so maybe the Austrians have managed to build a massive and theoretically sound set of ideas, and yes, they have been surprisingly accurate about many significant events. But what if it's just a phase? I mean, at one point even Marx looked like a visionary, and of course the last 70 years have been centered around Keynes and his "successful" fiscal policy.

I found that to be particularly salient because I really don't feel like waking up one day to have my hopes and dreams shattered. But there's a second prong to the methodology of Austrian economics. Not only do Austrians use their methodology to interpret history, analyze economic trends, and make predictions that show the correctness of their principles - they also derive, from the exact same basic set of axioms, criticisms of opposing or competing theories. Austrians developed the first thorough criticism of Socialism in the early 20th century - a monumental effort that has yet to be thoroughly or even partially refuted. When the Communist powers began collapsing at the turn of the century, and previously unknown data (the USSR kept their actual economic/social data under wraps) began to be analyzed, the cause of the failures were largely in order with what Mises had claimed would be the critical flaws of Marxism. Had he been alive to see the degree of his own insight, he probably wouldn't have been as triumphant and proud as the rest of the "free world" - 'cause he called that shit, years ago.

So the Austrians were vindicated, because not only did they predict the collapse of Socialism, but they nailed the causes, as well. No big deal, alot of people could have seen that coming.

Which brings us to the present, where we are seeing the once-celebrated Keynesian "New Economics" crumble away on both theoretical and empirical levels. At this point, I don't even think I have to tell you: but yes, decades ago, Henry Hazlitt wrote a nearly page-by-page refutation called "The Failures of the New Economics".

Mises wrote "Socialism" in 1922 - very poor timing, as Socialism was becoming widely accepted in political and social circles. Hayek wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 - just as America was becoming the "Champion of Freedom and Democracy", representing the opposite of tyranny and oppression. Hazlitt wrote "Failures of the New Economics" in 1959 - right in the midst of the biggest period of economic expansion in history.

I repeatedly hear accusations of "refusing to see the obvious truth" and "being inconsistent with the realities of the present" or even "failing to look outside of the narrow confines of an ideology". Such views, well... such views fail to see the obvious truth, remain ignorant of the realities of the present, and fail to look outside the narrow confines of the speaker's own ideologies.

To me, it's mind boggling. Seriously. From micro-economics, to macro-economics, to analyzing current news, to predicting future events, from refuting its arch-rival Socialism to refuting even other free-market schools of thought - and coming out relatively unscathed. And even if there exists any serious refutations of the Austrian viewpoint today, I'm fairly confident in saying that it's probably just a matter of time.

That such a complex yet harmonious body of knowledge could prove to be so salient even though at its core resides a mere handful of principles... understandably, that probably sounds inconceivable when I first suggest the idea. But it's not exactly new. Our very existence and the world we live in is, at its core, just a few different types of atoms bouncing around. But, when you switch and move those atoms around - they give form to the infinitely diverse array of matter that is our reality, regardless of whether or not we choose to recognize their existence.

In conclusion, I think what I'm trying to say here is... Vote Nixon/Agnew, 2008.

[gran guerrero]

In the marketplace, if you disagree with Wal-Mart... then take your business to Target or hey, even Whole Foods. Because here's the beautiful thing: if you consider questions of ethics when you shop, then you can take your business to like-minded individuals. But sometimes you just can't stick to your ideals when you can't afford Whole Foods, and so some people shop at Wal-Mart. And the beautiful thing? Since the (unhampered) market leads to higher standards of living and increased purchasing power, there may be a day when Wal-Mart isn't as vital, because more impoverished individuals can now afford Whole Foods. That's not to say people shop at Wal-Mart only because they are impoverished. Me, I shop at Wal-Mart because it's five minutes away and they have a shitload of stuff. Yet I, too, manage to cleanly fit into the over-arching dynamic market process. In a free market, over time, Wal-Mart would likely shrink in size as its targeted customer base (low-income) shrank or sought more affordable alternatives - and eventually a new equilibrium would be reached that would prove to be even more beneficial to me, you, Wal-mart, Wal-Mart's customers, Whole Foods, their customers...

Just to let you know if you didn't, but they do have jobs for psychologists for this kind of stuff. In the food markets and stuff. There's a reason why the cheap, dull looking shit is on the bottom shelf, or on the way top of the thing so you can't see it. Or why they place a certain product by another. They survey you guys every time you shop (without your knowing of course, it's through the cameras), so they find out what makes humans decide is worth buying if they are near another product (like soda near snacks, oil near spices, so and so on) They re-arrange em to suit the basic trends humans have.

The human mind is so wonderful, it's a job market in itself.

[Cops]

once again more walls of text :/

in other news

MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN UN-SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE - ECONOMY STILL IN THE SHITTER

[Jerome Scuggs]

once again more walls of text :/

in other news

MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN UN-SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE - ECONOMY STILL IN THE SHITTER

you know i just read it also (i never really consciously plan these rants, the argument just sort of spontaneously builds itself) and i think i managed to pull off a decent bastardization of kant, which means i'm probably going to go read "critique of pure reason". that kind of pisses me off because i've always dismissed him as irrelevant.

edit: ok i just wiki'd this guy and i am now very interested. might pop an adderall and head over to a library tonight.

edit II: okay i'm pissed. Ludwig von Mises beat me to it.