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

[Nycle]

Well, I know standard economic theory assumes humans are fully rational, which is where the development of Behavioural Economics comes from (economists disagreeing with the fully rational thing, etc.).

Finally something I can completely agree with you upon. As a student of public administration which is a part of the social sciences, one of the first things I learned is that pure capitalism in itself stands on the assumption that everything happens rationally, while human beings inherently do not make rational decisions. For example, in a basic model of supply and demand, not everyone will pay exactly the market price (and nothing more or less) for a certain product or service. There are so many models and theories that do not fully take the human aspect of handling into account.

Therefore, any theory or model that totally trusts the "invisible hand" of the capitalistic free market model to do its job and magically bring progress, peace, stability and all those utopian ideals into a society, is a fundamentally flawed one and it's a government's responsibility to make sure that these "ideologies" do not take the upper hand at the expense of a society as a whole.

I think it's funny when you extrapolate this situation to the believe in some holy diety. People who support some more or less pure form of capitalism think the "invisible hand" will do what is necessary and there's no stopping to it, while in religion, the holy diety does exactly the same and in today's modern secular societies this idea is pretty much dying. People need to realize that they are largely in control of their own fate, and when unacceptable situations arise it's not appropriate to leave it to an intangible force and trust it to solve all of our problems. I believe that uncontrolled capitalism too, which has caused so many atrocities from slavery to the exploitation and impoverishment of the weak, will eventually become subject to "true rationalism" which basically means giving up on this model in its more "purer forms". What's next, is for people themselves to decide. Let's just hope that it does solve a lot of problems that pure capitalists claim to be solving.

[Salubrious]

Everytime you torrent the new Christina Aguilara album from a site without paying, you rebel against capitalism!

[Zerzera]

I'd like to believe that the American populous didn't know about or believe that George Bush would prompt a war against Iraq

Makes me wonder if you followed the elections of 2000.

[genocidal]

Makes me wonder if you followed the elections of 2000.

Well now I'm positive that you didn't.

[Jerome Scuggs]

Jerome, I read your posts, but I am sad that you missed the point. By proving Marxism wrong you didn't disprove the fact that your plan is as much as an ideology. The fact that it might work and that it seems like a perfect model to you doesn't change that.

I'll repeat this: 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?

It's as if a priest asked a biologist to explain why he thinks God doesn't exist. The biologist will attempt to try to thoroughly explain the scientific reasoning that leads him to his conclusion, only to be called "ideological".

If you truly think I have missed a point then tell me what I missed - and don't waste my time telling me the same thing over again - it just shows who's really missing the point.

Don't gloat too much that you found out that people predicted this economic 'crisis', it was pretty common knowledge to any educated person.

Like who?

You know Jerome, there really is no point in writing such long posts and referencing people and theories that almost nobody on this forum has any idea about or have ever heard of. I mean it might help to have a bit of a primer which isn't just a linked article (which you didn't even provide!). You're going way beyond the knowledge of most people to allow them to make an educated and critical appraisal of what you wrote possible.

I think something that I can see but perhaps isn't very obvious to others: if you really wanted to, and took all of my posts dealing with... well, any post I've made in the past year or so dealing with more or less any serious topic, and you put them together... you'd see that they are all in all very consistent. That's because instead of viewing "issues" in isolated, compartmentalized boxes, I view them as all parts of the whole.

That was my major insight into the "business cycle" when I wrote that post - I realized that for some reason, mainstream economists have this weird paradoxical stance: a majority, if not all of them readily accept "business cycle" theory even though there is [i]absolutely no explanation[i] for the occurrence of supposed business cycles in general macroeconomics - and when you try to apply what is supposedly true about macroeconomics to a theory about business cycles, once again there is absolutely no consistency or harmony.

So every time we start talking about some new thing, I'm not talking about just that thing - I'm simultaneously trying to see how it fits with everything else. But I think the problem is alot of people don't think that way.

I remember that health care thread - that was the first time I ever really got in-depth about economics in a discussion. And in retrospect thats probably why it was such a disaster - I was trying to argue healthcare in a completely different framework than, quite frankly, people are used to debating in.

Most of the stuff that we argue over - I don't really know alot about. I usually learn within the thread. Hence the long posts - usually I'm explaining things, like the history of business cycles or something.

Most of the time I never bring evidence to the table, you're correct. But usually, that's because the evidence is there - when you provide it. When I look at "evidence" or "studies", I don't just read it and say "oh, I was wrong"... because, like you said, alot of people have definitely not heard of austrian economics, methodology, et cetera. So when someone looks at economic statistics, they are interpreting them in a completely different way than I would.

So what I usually do is, I take the facts and figures and attempt to incorporate them into the mass of information I already have, and see if it provides a better explanation. That's why I'm always analyzing things from every perspective - the short term, the long term, the viewpoints of various groups and special interests as well as other things. At that point, I don't really need evidence, because once I fit the numbers into the big picture, and the big picture makes sense, noone ever really argues.

In other words: statistics are nothing but numbers until someone takes those numbers and attempts to explain their relationship to something. That analysis, not the numbers themselves, are what constitutes "evidence". And I think we both agree that "analysis" is certainly what I do alot of.

From your huge Austrian school post (there's an Austrian school? News to me), all I can say is that even Nostradamus was right a lot of the time. And even Chris Carter predicted 9/11 a year before it would happen... sorta.

wiki article - i don't actually know alot about their history, it just happens that these guys seem to reach conclusions that i do alot of the time, so i definitely keep my finger on the pulse.

At this point all I can do is urge you to read what Austrians said about the coming recession. It wasn't some "prophecy" or otherwise uninformed guess... they made statements that were as specific as possible (because at some point, the unpredictable human element comes into play), and where did they get the information? As I explained above, Austrian economists try to fit all phenomena into a general worldview and see if all the individual events add up to equal reality... if something doesn't add up, then they test everything out and revise until it makes sense.

[Jerome Scuggs]

I said it, in case Jerome refuted the point of people being bounded rational being a huge problem for a free market to work.

I don't think I am declaring wars here or have a whole countries economic stability relying on this. if I did, I would read it. But right now, his posts come after all the reading I do for Uni.

"Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

It is difficult for the isolated individual to work himself out of the immaturity which has become almost natural for him. He has even become fond of it and for the time being is incapable of employing his own intelligence, because he has never been allowed to make the attempt. Statutes and formulas, these mechanical tools of a serviceable use, or rather misuse, of his natural faculties, are the ankle-chains of a continuous immaturity. Whoever threw it off would make an uncertain jump over the smallest trench because he is not accustomed to such free movement. Therefore there are only a few who have pursued a firm path and have succeeded in escaping from immaturity by their own cultivation of the mind."

-Immanuel Kant

The problem is that I don't try to "learn" a theory or idea or set of ideas. When it boils down to it I'm trying to make sense of things. Don't tell me I'm wrong because your book on economics said so - tell me I'm wrong because there's actually something wrong with what I said.

[Liquid Blue]

I've skimmed this thread since I missed the debate friday night and caught a little bit of it on youtube

I'll go into detail on what I think about McCain and Obama later, but I just wanted to talk for a second about the long posts and people's desire to learn more.

Our society on a whole has gotten really fucking lazy and although a good number of people that do come to this topic every now and then, would like to learn about the shit Jerome and Epi are talking about- won't, simply because they aren't used to absorbing so much info in a small amount of time anymore.

People have had minute long sound-bites and quick, flashy ads shoveled down the gullets of their eyeballs and ears so much that taking the time to pause and absorb some info is like slamming brakes on while driving down the highway.

Not that Epi/Jerome make it any easier on them- you guys do lay alot of shit down in your posts. I'm glad to see a few people really interested in this though, I myself have started to read more about our economy since early August and it's been an eye-opener. I'll be back, just wanted to say hi for now.

[Jerome Scuggs]

i can't even imagine what it must be like for people to actively shun chances to learn and form complex patterns of thought on subjects...

i can't fault people for not knowing everything that i know - i fault them at the point where they refuse to take that opportunity to learn.

when people tell me shit - i listen. doesn't mean i agree but i fucking listen. that's just being a decent human being.

but what do i know, i'm a goofy anarchist and that's just crazy. society needs government - otherwise people would be forced to make decisions for themselves and that requires things like "thinking" and "decision-making" and "responsibility". fuck that, i'd rather give someone half my paycheck so they can tell me whether or not abortion and gay marriage is right or wrong. you know... the things that really matter.

[Liquid Blue]

Whoa there sally don't assume people see your long posts and are like "knowledge? fuck that noise, son. It's just how they've been shaped by the media and how society acts on a whole, in their everyday lives.

Especially in our country, people are constantly pushed to believe they have less time to do more work and are constantly bombarded by negative press and situations day in and day out. Kids these days are taught to run on fear and adrenaline, no time to have individual thought.

My room mate and I just spent the past little bit watching anderson cooper (laughing about sarah palin) and looking her up on youtube to watch the katie couric interview where she got destroyed. I also saw the SNL skits about her and those were great as well. After I take a shower I might write up a little shit on my thoughts of the candidates.

[Cops]

Makes me wonder if you followed the elections of 2000.

No where in the 2000 elections was it a priority to go to war, George Bush wasn't originally voted in as a leader that would draw the country into a pointless war. The issues that were being discussed and debated had nothing to do with his current presidential platform.

You can keep blaming average Americans for things they had very little control over, but it's not fair, and you know it.

[genocidal]

To say nothing of the fact that more people voted for Gore than Bush in 2000, but I have a feeling Zerzera is not so much interested in facts as he is propaganda that his government shoves down his throat.

[Cops]

Basically, but all he really has to do is look a time line and realize that the American people had no fucking clue he would go to war with Iraq, especially considering it was three fucking years after he was elected president.

Why not blame the real people for this administrations fallacies? It's pretty fucking disgusting to blame someone who voted someone in for completely different reasons. We've had this discussion before, but whatever you think you may know about Americans is wrong. I must say it's piss poor of you to shift the blame onto an entire nation of people when the blame rests on the shoulders of a handful of individuals.

gen: I'll be in Florida in t-minus 78 days, ye ye

[Jerome Scuggs]

Whoa there sally don't assume people see your long posts and are like "knowledge? fuck that noise, son. It's just how they've been shaped by the media and how society acts on a whole, in their everyday lives.

Yeah, I guess that's a good point... i just get really frustrated sometimes. You have no idea how difficult it is to be twenty years old, have anarchist views, and be taken seriously - did I mention I'm currently an English major? It's hard for people who haven't known me for a long time to really cut past all that - and I understand why, because I know plenty of twenty-year-old anarchist english majors and they're all pretty fucking retarded.

I think there will be a day when I can say things like "man, the people running our country are idiots" and people will not think I mean it in the way that your average pot-smoking adolescent kid does. Until then, I have to go the long route in explaining just how and why.

[Epinephrine]

Jerome:

To be fair, it probably doesn't help your cause that in threads outside these ones, you frequently talk about all the drugs you consume on a daily basis. Furthermore, no matter how smart and how correct you may be, credibility takes a long time to build, and since you're only 20 and you frequently use drugs you lose a lot of credibility. As smart as I like to think I am, I can readily concede that I am MUCH, MUCH wiser now then I was when I was 20, and I thought I was hot shit then too.

I don't try to really hold that against you though, I just think that you are not as critical as you think you are. You, as all people view things through your own lens and your own perceptions of what is right. It's well known in psychology that different people will perceive the exact same situations and the exact same facts differently depending on their worldview. It is extremely, extremely hard to be objective.

This is why I believe in the scientific method, which at it's core is based on data, on numbers, and is peer reviewed, which means that overall the aggregate of all views will at least average out to more of the 'truth' than any aggregate of opinion pieces ever will. It is also hard for me to take economics seriously as a science, because it is definitely NOT a science, there are no well-run experiments and no controls. Many of my economist friends will admit that at best economics is a pseudo-science as well (even if Eric is God might argue otherwise.

BTW you missed the point of my Austrian school post. My point is that you're bringing up facts (i.e. the existance of an Austrian school), and then talking about opinions of people in that school as if we even knew such a thing existed. You need to read your post again and realize that if we had no idea that there was an Austrian school or what they stood for, the best we could make were guesses as to their real stance, from your own opinions of what you think they believed in which applied to your specific article. If I had to make an analogy, I would say, that would be like seeing what a treatment to a heart attack was in any specific patient, and trying to generalize that to why those treatments are used, and how to treat anyone with heart attacks... it just can't be done without base knowledge. Talking about specific knowledge so casually with people who don't have that knowledge is pretty pointless and is the fastest way to get people to ignore what you have to say.

[Epinephrine]

To add back to this thread for real....

Now that they rejected the bailout plan, I guess McCain's gambit of appearing to be the guy who suspended his campaign to look like he fixes things failed.