Keynes vs. Hayek: the fight continues
I must confess to feeling a bit weary now that the debt ceiling negotiations have been concluded. And this is only the first of many bitter fights to come. What to cut? Who’s to decide? How much is enough? How much is too much? What to do about taxes? And what effect will the whole thing have on the struggling economy? I can’t say I have much faith in the ability and will of our elected officials to deal effectively with it all.
I’d also dearly love to be able to actually understand—I mean, really deeply understand, and in detail—what both Keynes and Hayek were saying, and why. That would probably take a couple of years of study; a crash course won’t do, and I’d probably never master the math. I doubt very much I’m going to invest the time and effort.
My preliminary opinion, based on what is admittedly very incomplete knowledge, is pro-Hayek. But that doesn’t mean Keynes didn’t make some good points.
Speaking of points, and of fights—here’s round #2 of the wonderfully clever (and hugely entertaining) Keynes/Hayek rap video that has been a sensation on YouTube:
[NOTE: I wrote about the first Keynes/Hayek rap video here, including photos of the real guys, who look quite a bit like their talented impersonators.]
Neo,
Crash course 🙂 ok – I hear ya but I’ll try anyway.
1) Keynes folks believe that government can make the marketplace better and have more people prosper with more central planning. They are not happy to see inequities and poor people when there is so much money being made.
2) Hayek folks (I’m in this camp) believe that more people prosper and the country is more prosperous when people choose who gets what resources with a free market. Of course there must be allowances for a safety net and safety regulations (nobody argues for zero government), however the more prosperous the nation, the higher employment, the people figure out how to make better choices with MORE personal responsibility (saving more, investing more, etc)
After these foundational beliefs you’ll see a lot of details where one camp tries to pursuade the other. A lot of misinformation about one camp or the other gets stated.
Democrats aren’t even representing Keynes at this point. Our government has gotten so ridiculously large and corrupt that I can only equate it to the movie “The Blob” that came out decades ago.
My two cents here . . .
From what I understand, a part of Keynesianism has to do with: in bad economic times, prime the pump — use the gummint to put more money into the economy as a boost. In good economic times, contract — have the gummint slow the economy down so as to better manage it.
MJR’s objection: what politician is going to be willing to contract when there’s so much money available to buy votes? So the pump gets primed and primed and primed, in good times as well as bad, and voila — it’s USA, circa 2011.
Modifications to my partial explanation are welcome, as I ain’t no economist.
And now, at no extra charge, an apt Bible reference: Gen 41:25-36. Was Joseph* the original Keynesian?
* later of “Technicolor Dreamcoat” fame
.
You’ll sometimes hear from the Keynes folks that the Internet wouldn’t exist or this or that wouldn’t exist without the government spending. They try to provide examples of the central planners who were better at it than the market.
The problem is – the government planners cannot forsee or know how to address the most pressing problems ahead of time. Luck is not success.
Time and time again – we see that money flows in order to provide more services or goods where the demands is.
This applies to everything:
1) treatments
2) electronics
3) research
4) technology
5) business efficiencies
6) services of all kinds
7) doctors and nurses (health)
8) transportation
9) energy (yes especially energy)
10) all daily needs (personal care, food)
11) and last but not least – housing
The more the government gets involved with any of these items the more expensive they get. Their object is to improve, or lessen inequities, or provide more opportunity, etc. But when they talk about x crisis needing to be solved by government – usually the government exacerbated the problem and usually the government fix will make it worse.
Cool. Now I know an 8 with an paren makes a 8)
I don’t think I’ll ever have deep understanding of this stuff either, in spite of Baklava and MJR’s best efforts. I’ll continue to try and use common sense.
Don’t spend more than you have, and remember “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”
To give both of these men their due, has anyone with an economics background done a point-by-point comparison of the major theoretical writings. IIRC, Keynes was interested in an early version of linear programming while Hayek (again IIRC) was very non-mathematical.
Anyone have any references…TIA!
Two thoughts:
1) For as smart and sophisticated as Keynesians think themselves, Hayek is using more sophisticated reasoning–that of complex adaptive systems, which is the cutting edge in physics, linguistics, cognitive science, meteriology, etc. And of course Hayek is folowing the amazing insights of Adam Smith. No would-be philospher king wants to hear that kind of stuff.
2) It may well be that we see good things happening from government spending (Teflon & Tang — and the second is somewhat questionable). But the pertinent question is what what we have had without that spending, given that gov’t spending takes resources from people, spends them as the gov’t chooses, and substitures its ‘wisdom’ for the billions of individual decisions people make on the basis of their local knowledge. Ah, the difficulty of comparing the seen with the unseen. Gov’t creating jobs is nothing more than an example of Bastiat’s
.
rats … link didn’t come out right. Here’s the URL:
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fallacy.asp
As many have noted, Obama is out of bullets. All he knows how to do is spend, but he shot his wad on the stimulus bill and Obamacare.
The one area where he could trigger job growth is the energy sector, but his ideology and base won’t let him. If unemployment stays high for another year, the liberals are going to get hammered in 2012.
I’m expecting that the electorate will see the just concluded debt limit agreement as way too little and way too late, and that–given what looks right now to be prospectively an even worse economic climate going into the election–many of the participants in that debate in Congress will be defeated this coming election, and an even more conservative crew will take their places.
Only then, with both a Republican House and Senate and, hopefully, a Republican President, can the real, draconian cuts that need to be made start to be made.
One more piece of the course..
Keynes people believe they can smooth out the business cycle.
However, they elongate the downturns in my view and incentivize (is that a word) poor decision making.
People lose the ethic of personal responsibility and short downturns in the economy cause more misery as it is expected that the government will help people even if they made bad choices.
Nobody wants to see people suffer.
But a hammock is not suffering.
It used to be soup lines and shelters….
Now it is Food stamps, WIC and housing assistance and on and on.
The subsidization of poor people into homes caused a big bubble.
The business cycle CANNOT be eliminated even if the country were communist and without free markets.
So as Keynesinites 8) believe that free markets are very inefficient,
they actually are showing their ignorance because a water will flow by itself to the lowest point.
Yes – the water might wash up a little because of momentum onto the opposing bank – but the water will recede.
There may be years where there is a glut of doctors for instance. The free market will take care of that in that there won’t be much incentive for people to become doctors given the higher supply of doctors creates a lower price per doctor.
The college bubble that is going on could correct itself if the federal government got out of the way.
Unfortunately we have to many politicians interested in “fixing” education… See where that leads.
Putting math and theory aside – here is the difference between Keynes and Hayek:
Keynes: limited faith in human nature and the ability of man to self-regulate – therefore, a free market concept is ultimately a failure. Collective intelligence of a government body will always make pure, unbiased decisions relating to the welfare of its subjects.
Hayek: Man and nature will self-regulate if left alone and ultimately result in a free market economy – man’s nature and its propensity for fairness and self-preservation will ultimately partake in a self-forming, self-regulating system of self governance and success for the benefit of culture and society.
Just a few fandom thoughts from a Viking….
Economics is fundamentally not about math, IMO; that’s why it is a ‘social science’, not a hard science.
Economics is about behavior.
Keynesianism has mutated from his original thesis, which in simple form was that government stimulates via debt in bad times, and in good times discharges those debts.
Hayek knew that government would (eventually) always make a hash of things.
In his book “The Return of the Great Depression” Vox Day has a good discussion on the Keynes vs. Hayek controversy.
(And of course the book is available through Neo’s link to Amazon in dead tree or Kindle versions.)
Here’s a quick sketch of Keyne’s General Theory:
“In his General Theory which he wrote during the 1930s depression years, John Keynes optimistically argues that downturns in the economy are short-lived problems that stems from a lack of demand. His solution to these problems was simple but radical: that the government should boost short-term demand through public spending. Further, he claimed that once the economy returns to buoyancy the government reclaims its budget deficit by increasing taxes and reducing public spending.
In other words, the government spending should be inversely proportional to private trade. When the economy slumps public spending should go up, and when trade is booming, the government should spend little. What was radical about his proposal was the general principle that the government should intervene in the economy if only to control demand. His idea is known as “demand management policy.”
As anyone who has paid attention to government spending in the USA knows, the pols like to increase spending to goose the economy, but are not so keen on reducing the outlays when the economy recovers. So, what the progressives advocate is one half of the General Theory.
Here’s an entry from wiki about Hayek and his philosophy:
“The Road to Serfdom is a book written by the Austrian-born economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek (1899—1992) between 1940—1943, in which he ”warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning,”[1] and in which he argues that the abandonment of individualism, classical liberalism, and freedom inevitably leads to socialist or fascist oppression and tyranny and the serfdom of the individual. Significantly, Hayek challenged the general view among British academics that fascism was a capitalist reaction against socialism, instead arguing that fascism and socialism had common roots in central economic planning and the power of the state over the individual.”
I think most of the readers here agree with the idea that central planning (Keynes is central planning light – socialism/communism is central planning on steroids) leads to many bad things. Sovereign bankruptcy, general poverty, and equality of misery being the most notable.
Many may disagree, but I believe we should not stop government spending too quickly. Freezing spending at 2010 or 20111 levels (That’s a lotta money!) for several years is enough to gradually reduce the deficit and force the government to make choices about where to spend money. But it would not suddenly put a lot of government workers on the street to add to the overall unemployment. Over time the Feds must reduce or eliminate the size and scope of many departments.(Education, energy, HUD, HHS, agrciculture, etc.) The military can be unified under a single command. That would stop (or slow) the insanity of the three branches fighting for weapons systems and money. I’m a hawk, but a cheap hawk.
The biggest programs of all are the so-called entitlements. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Congressional pensions. All have been over promised and must be cut and reformed so that they are not subject to 7% increases from here to eternity. But the cuts and reforms must be done over a period of years so that those presently totally dependent on the programs are not suddenly with no support.
Government spending does have a salutary effect on the economy. Ask a merchant at any city/town with a military base what that payroll means for their business. What does not make sense is all the Federal money to local governments for “urban renewal projects.” I went to a debate of our mayoral candidates the other day. The small city where I live owes it existence and location to farming, forestry, and railroading. Only the farming is left. The town is not as prosperous as it once was. The mayoral candidates have dreams of turning this quiet little burg into a “destination resort” town. How? With Federal grants to rebuild the down town into something cutesy that will attract tourists year round. We now have a three week tulip festival each spring that attracts so many people that you can’t drive anywhere in a reasonable length of time. They think it would be just grand if the Feds would pony up the money to allow some grandiose plans to make the place unlivable year round! That is the kind of BS liberal thinking that goes on all over the USA. And it is where too much Federal money goes. If this town was a good candidate for a year round destination resort, then private money would come in here and git ‘er dun.
The problem with capitalism in many people’s eyes is that there are winners and losers. The challenge is educate people to learn to accept that fact. Another challenge is to find a generally accepted way for churches and NGOs to provide the safety net instead of the government.
One other thought to add to the equation:
Keynesians will routinely resort to “we didn’t do enough” when cornered on why things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to. We’re already hearing “the stimulus wasn’t large enough.” The counterfactual thus becomes a refuge from critics.
But fundamentally, in my estimation, Keynesianism doesn’t work. A government and economy like ours is too large to be influenced significantly by a few policy wonks who think they know better than the rest of the world what needs to be tweaked and how far.
Similarly, the marketplace is too large for those same wonks to manage it from inside the beltway. Soviet central planning ran afoul of the same reality: you just can’t forecast the national need for widgets — or GM trucks, for that matter — from the capital city.
The market is imperfect, and sometimes even heartless and cruel, but it works. F
Some good comments and explanations above. I like M J R’s and Hjalmar’s for their simplicity and succinctness.
I would just add that statists of all stripes love Keynes, since it gives them more power over the rest of us.
Hayek had an undying belief in the allocative efficiency of markets. What some people call laissez faire capitalism. And it is how the real world works without a thrid party, a huge government apparatus, intervening.
Under Hayek, when over-investment occurs, then markets adjust and recessions happen. That causes markets to self-regulate and prices for assets, commodities and labor all correct until the markets ultimately clears. With no social safety nets, which is how the country operated from the time Columbus discovered the continent until the 1930s, the disruptions and pain to people during those bust periods when markets were adjusting could be extremely painful (but were generally short lived). That’s the market’s way of instilling discipline to warn about the folly malinvestment. Over the long term, Hayek argued that these boom and bust cycles resulted in the most efficient way to allocate resources and was preferable to either a centrally planned economy or one where governments intervene. That’s because market participants (which is all of us), respond to price signals. And when governments intervene in markets the price signal gets distorted. That results in malinvestment (either over or under capital investment), shortages or surpluses, and a general inefficient allocation of resources. In the long run, it reduces overall prosperity.
Keynes, on the other hand, said these boom/bust cycles cause too much pain. He argued that government should play a role to reduce the pain by “smoothing” the business cycle. His answer was for the government to engage in TEMPORARY deficit spending to keep aggregate demand from falling, or falling more than it otherwise would, if markets were allowed to clear themselves. That keeps asset, commodity and labor prices from falling and reduces the pain.
Keynes suggested using the borrowings to finance infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, canals, dams, levees, etc. Those projects would keep people working and firm up aggregate demand. They also would provide economic benefits for many years in the future. Finally, because the deficit spending was only supposed to be temporary, Keynes expected the government would not only stop borrowing when the economy recovered, but it would repay the borrowing that occurred during the recession.
Obviously, we haven’t followed Hayek’s principles since before the FDR era. And we NEVER followed pure, orthodox Keynesianism. Deficit spending for the sake of deficit spending is not Keynesianism. What passes for Keynesianism today is borrowing to finance STRUCTURAL deficits. The government has made too many promises to too many people which can not be honored based on the tax rates that people are willing to accept. On the other hand, the beneficiaries paid into social security and Medicare at the rates mandated by Congress. They correctly see no reason why they should accept reduced benefits. Quite a pickle the government has created for all of us.
The automatic cuts that occur if the “Committee” can’t reach agreement target defense and medicare providers (doctors, hospitals, etc.).
Those are two key targets of liberal policy makers. The best way to hit those targets will be to prevent the “Committee” from reaching an agreement.
Let’s see if the Dems pack the “Committee” with stubborn progressives. It will be like saying, “You want cuts? We’ll give you cuts.”
Off Topic, but there seems to be no other way to contact you: Jell-O News:
http://www.moonmilk.com/2011/07/09/meet-the-jeltone/
[power tends to corrupt
absolute power corrupts absolutely]
the greatest threat to freedom and liberty is the concentration of power
and the concentration of power in government is worst of all
free market capitalism is one of the greatest diffusers of the concentration of power and the single greatest vehicle to economic freedom–a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of political freedom
(another great vehicle of the free market capitalism versus collectivism “debates” are uncle miltie’s you tubes of the donahue show in 1979 and the free to choose stuff- get the word out)
One other thing we now know about the Dems: Nancy Pelosi and Jesse Jackson Jr. have both said publicly unemployment is good for the economy because the benefit payments are circulated quickly. This is a total perversion of Keynes.
Neo, I’m rarely ever disappointed when I come to your great site; however I admit your confession of coming down only slightly on the side of Hayek here not only disappoints me, it shocks me.
SHOCKED ME I TELL YOU!
The reason for this, for me at least, is the Hayek over Keysian economic argument is the most fundamental basis for my conversion to conservative political and economic positions in the last ten years. Frankly I don’t see how you can call yourself a neocon if you haven’t resolved this basic conflict.
I know you’re much more thorough and well-thought out in your blogging than I—more a mere hobbyist at this point—who often shoots from the hip. Nevertheless I am a bit dismayed by your admission here.
Also think these commnets are outstanding and Baklava nails it in his economic analysis, as do several others.
Now just wait a minute, JJ. Why should gov’t employees get a softer landing when they are a major cause of our problems? Let ’em join in the mess besetting the rest of us. Have you perhaps not noticed that among the wealthiest counties are the Virgina suburbs of DC, where house values have not dropped and salaries are increasing?
Think what Fed. unemployment, mandated to match national unemployment, would do for the regulatory state.
At the very bottom level core of it.. Hayek says, certainly you can manipulate things, but you cant do so to get a free lunch, nor can you do so and raise productivity as high as independent minds at the points of the actual decisions. and so he won a Nobel prize for economics proving that if you DO manipulate, you get the problems we are familiar with and why. he is also known for a lot of discussion as to the logic of why one or another person would adopt or want either capitalism and socialism tied to basic psychological principals.
keynes says, certainly you can manipulate, and then launches into how and all the great things and so on… (he later said he was wrong if i remember correctly).. basically keynes was the man with the idea that facilitated what politicians WANTED to do, but had no scientific justification for it (like kinsey, meade, and lots of others in lots of other places).
given that hayek keeps clerks as servants of the people, and keynes makes them financial gods with lots of power and lots of opportunity for corruption and power plays, which do you think was stressed to be the favorite..
but then why do we know hayek
well. you may THINK you need years of study to understand them, but if you read a few things, you have no problem… to read hayek is often a breath of fresh air… his works were very popular with the common man, and he more than many others diverted past potentials in that his “road to serfdom” was accessible, and easy to understand…
it also fit human nature, and so on
if you start with keynes, you start with the alchemists and post modernists big words and meanings… (note that papers generated by computer have been published as peer reviewed work in such ‘science’ areas)
hayek said you tame the mustang you dont have a mustang anymore, you have a horse with the morphology of a mustang
keynes said, if you tame the mustang you make them more productive and so on…
but who said the wild mustang isnt productive?
the person who has aims on the output of that production, not the mustang…
keynes facilitates directing things to your ends using others… the part of all these pet theories to fix or help society always leave out… hayek says, do that, and the goose stops laying golden eggs.
however grabbing the steering wheel on a car bound to nowhere on an infinite plane leading to nothing you can never reach…
why do that?
the urge to control was and is a throwback quality we as a species with the american revolution was trying to tame in ourselves
just as sociopaths are a throwback, etc
that urge comes from the idea of gene dominance, and influence… that the important should have more kids, and the dangerous other should have less…
for example..
nanci pelosi has five kids..
lets say that each has five also as a family tradition and so on for 10 generations while the common western liberated by the elite ideas woman has 2 kids..
in 10 generations the common woman has had a chain of 1024 offspring.. in simplest terms. the chain from the pelosi’s would be 9,765,625 in simplest terms of course…
so whats the game?
my family genes and such should dominate, and we tell you that we are all equal so that you dont think your unique individual self is important… and eradicate everything that reinforces that idea of individual.
hayek defended that individual, and basically said, the world would be better over time if the better able did better and so naturally had more kids. though i dont think he ever went into the demographics of it directly…
Keynesian economics advocates a mixed economy–predominantly private sector, but with a moderate role of government and public sector–and served as the economic model during the later part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war economic expansion (1945—1973), though it lost some influence following the stagflation of the 1970s
Keynes vs. Hayek: The Rise of the Chicago School of Economics
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php?lid=593&type=educator
blockquote crash… sorry..
i should mention that since keynes advocated controlling the means in production in some way, the left naturally fell into line… as the road was going their way for a while, and maybe we will just keep on marching… hayek upturned that apple cart once
I haven’t read the comments above, but I’ll give my opinion anyway.
Today I asked a workman if he could fix part of my roof. He said that OSHA wouldn’t let him use a ladder. He would have to hire some kind of special vehicle with a lift to do so. If OSHA caught him on a ladder, they would fine his company many thousands of dollars for the violation of OSHA rules.
Guess what my first thought was. OK, you can’t guess so I’ll tell you:
I know a Mexican immigrant (legal or illegal, I don’t know) who can fix this problem. I’ll call him, and I’ll probably save hundreds if not thousands of dollars. OSHA can’t be everywhere.
Why should I pay tons of money because OSHA says a man can’t get on a ladder? I used to get on a ladder for my old job. It’s no big deal if one’s careful. That’s what insurance is for.
Am I a bad person? No, I’m a tea-partying terrorist who would eliminate 90% of all OSHA jobs.
Webutante: the word “slightly” was in there for a reason, but it may not be the reason you think. I can’t say “strongly” because I haven’t delved deeply into each man’s works. From what I know of Hayek and Keynes, I do favor Hayek. But I can’t do so strongly until I know a great deal more of the details of what each man said.
I also know that both may have been somewhat misrepresented by their advocates. For example, even some people in the comments section here have said that many Keynesians leave out some of what Keynes said, such as the fact that in better times the government should end the deficit spending. So it may be that Keynes was a lot more moderate in what he was advocating than is commonly thought.
That’s why I can’t have a strong opinion about either; I just don’t have the depth of knowledge.
Webutante,
Thanks!
Neo,
Yeppers. Democrats only believe in and cite Keynes when it suits them. Democrats and liberals are to the left of Keynes essentially.
When economic times are good – they fight the tax cut. When economic times are bad – they fight the tax cut.
When economic times are good – they figure out a way to sell a crisis and increase spending. When economic times are bad – well we must increase spending.
Keynes suits Democrats needs for a bit.
Essentially, Democrats love the power and the bragging rights to believe and sell the belief that they “CARE” and Republicans are evil, mean-spirited and don’t care.
But I’m saying everything you know. 🙂 8)
To me there are 3 ways to sell smaller government:
1) Government needs to focus on the essentials in order to actually care better. The safety net is diluted and in peril if it can’t afford it.
2) It promotes personal responsibility. People should not be rewarded for making poor choices such as buying too much home when they couldn’t afford it and financing college with home equity loans.
3) Our country is stronger and more able to defend itself when it prospers. It can’t prosper or grow when the politicians are devining new ways of taxing and regulating. National security is imperative.
BTW, The USS Enterprise the first nuclear powered air craft carrier (the only one with 8 nuclear reactors) is being retired next year after this next deployment.
It’s the longest, maybe the fastest and most agile 🙂 for an aircraft carrier. It has 4 rudders instead of two.
See Wikipedia’s entry for CVN 65.
Don Carlos,
“Economics is fundamentally not about math, IMO; that’s why it is a ‘social science’, not a hard science. Economics is about behavior.”
Very well put. Like Neo, I feel far less confident discussing economics than most other subjects.
That said, I’m definitely pro-Hayek. Hayek is far more compatible with the traditional view that economic problems are better solved within the local community rather than by government intervention. The only exception I’d make is the need for government measures against unfair external competition, i.e. what people usually call protectionism.
I don’t care if my views on economics are horribly close to Ron Paul’s. First of all, I can separate between the guy’s agreeable views on economics and his rotten, Blame-America-First views on foreign policy, and second, I’d formed those views long before I heard of Ron Paul, as part of my general view that the state has the duty of being its nation’s castle.
It matters who and under what ideology the central planning is attempted. NASA had some good innovative years. But it was achieved while its management had a fundamental respect and admiraton for the unique contribution of the individual.
Who can name a notable individual in the space industry since the mid 70’s? Virtually nobody, because the beauracratic machine infested with grandiose liberals and their pie in the sky collectivist mentality knew better how to run things.
And they ran it in the ground just like they are running our country in the ground.
Keynes may indeed have some merit. But you’ll never know it while it’s implemeted by people so heavily bent towards full blown communism.
Hey Zionist traitors – kill any ‘leftist’ children today?
Hey Neo – are you ready? I hope you are.
NASA was created for a specific purpose, not as an anti-depression measure. It’s history proves that Americans can do amazing things, and it also proves that the government can drag down any innovative effort.
I would never use the space program as an example of Keynesian economics, except as a warning to people to turn to private enterprise for innovation.
“Breivik spends many pages describing the evils committed by Turkey, including the massacres of the Armenians, Greeks and Kurds. There is a long chapter on the modern history of Lebanon, and the wars are presented as a struggle between Christians and Muslims. His favourite historical hero is Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian prince better known as Count Dracula.
His logic is as primitive as it is faulty: “If all ethnical groups and all cultures are equal, why is it black Africans, Afro-Caribbean blacks, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans want to abandon their own lands en masse to live in the lands of the West?”
The most obvious explanation: “because the West has robbed them blind,” does not occur to Breivik.
He continues his fallacious dialog: “If we’re all truly equal, why does the rest of the world want to live the Western lifestyle, a lifestyle created in the main by white people? Just why exactly, do they want to be part of capitalism, run businesses, work for the white man’s industries, claim the white man’s welfare and buy and use goods created by the creativity and ingenuity of Western – white – people?”
The fallacies are opaque to Breivik. His Neocon informers have not equipped him to understand that the hated immigrants had once worked in their own successful industries in their own countries.
By no means can Breivik be characterised as a Christian fundamentalist; nor is he a Christian Zionist. His feelings towards Christianity are lukewarm at best, little more than a cultural solidarity. He hasn’t decided whether to call himself Christian. He is still “struggling with this myself. Some of the criticism of Christianity…is legitimate.” Like many Jewish activists, he approves of “the Second Vatican Council from the 1960s …for reaching out to Jews”, an interpretation that at one time was universally resisted by conservatives everywhere. ”
None of us proper and authentic Christians ever thought this piece of work was ever a Christian.
He’s a proto-Zionist. Like you, Neo. Just like you.
“…because the West has robbed them blind.”
Western colonialism ended about 40 years ago, Marxturd. I realize asking people to grow up and own their problem is like asking Obama to stop blaming Bush, but I’ll say it anyway: Grow up and own your problems.
“He’s a proto-Zionist.”
It all comes back to the Jews somehow. Like the dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park, somehow it finds a way. Blame Western colonialism, blame “racism,” blame Islamo-awarness (which you call “-phobia”), blame the Zionists/Jews (interchangeable)–blame everyone but yourselves, your own ideology (Marxism) or religion (Islam) that’s holding you back.
I have to thank you, though. I have to thank you for the reminder as to why Marxism needs to be outlawed in any nation-state that values its freedom. Because the traitor here (contra your first post) is none other than you.
Why should I pay tons of money because OSHA says a man can’t get on a ladder?
because people are no longer being taught operating principals behind things which makes them effective even on a ‘new’ problem. like slaves they are taught just what to do, as if there is a great rule book that they can memorize to do different jobs. take the poor pair of paramedics, one took paddles and thought it would be funny to shock the other. the other went into electrical induced systemic collapse that took days, and then died. they sentenced him for the crime, and said they were sad to do so. but if he was taught operating principals, not rules of operation, he would understand and be more capable of making choices.
this is what prevents the facilitation of kings to clerks and returns administrators to rulers, because if you cant commiserate with others and effectively self organize as everyone is the captain, if you cant even make the first order choice of experience better than fantasy, empiricism better than belief, and so on… you cant do squat to change things…
if you have ever seen blacksmith puzzles, the origin of them was not puzzles… they were pad locks… and given the common person had no operating principals to extrapolate from, they had no capacity to remember the moves necessary to open the puzzle, and get into the box or chest.
its really that simple, and the only thing that prevents common cogency is the inability to accept that people can do that, and not only do that but organize, dissimulate, and like a Gothic cathedral, do so over several lifetimes of effort (usually requiring family).
Milton Friedman floats my boat. Yes, that is Chicago thought at the onset, but he does end up on his on road.
Keynesians leave out some of what Keynes said, such as the fact that in better times the government should end the deficit spending. So it may be that Keynes was a lot more moderate in what he was advocating than is commonly thought.
neo, thats a “distracting argument” in which the acceptance of contemplating it requires the acceptance of a hidden premise… that manipulation can work in SOME form…
the idea that moderate serial killing would be better than the full blown thing, shows the concept of contaminated purity… ie. things that HAVE to remain pure and whole cant be moderated by something else.
all kinds of things are like this and all kinds of other things are argued in isolation when there is no such thing in reality.
by arguing from an operating point in the premise, you are forced to accept the whole of the higher premise to be able to discuss the lower one.
when arguing that abortion is a social good in isolation, you have to accept that its a social good in combination with social engineering changing life courses. but the COMBINATION of the two, is eugenics… so an isolated argument of the lower down facts fixes in your mind the higher order acceptance which is not examined. your brain gears it and throws it so you can get on with what your focusing on.
so what happens is that Keneysians who are FOR that, forget to first establish whether doing ANYTHING at all is ok or not, and whether the methods do not play unfalsifiable games.
you cant even get to the argument of moderate or extreme or any point of it until you accept that its ok to play games with it, and empower people with life and death power to fulfill an arbitrary (religious) aesthetic that so happens to serve the purposes of the most despotic and sadistic people.
we dont notice that they are playing teh same gimme one more chance to hurt you sociopathic game that they play with socialism and other things. ie… it was not implemented in its pure form, which is why it failed. it was not implemented by the right despot, which is why it failed. it needs time to evolve to meet challenges and so the pain is normal and just a reaction to that, and not that its failed… if we had more money, the whole would not have collapsed before we were finished, can we have more please
can we have more please…
no one wants to scream MORE!!! MORE!!!
the boy here says he wants more…
get that troublesome boy! Oliver!!!!
no, we want to just keep spooning out porridge
we don’t want to be mean, or even worse, perceived as mean by others… but to the detrimental ability to allow others to control us by holding ransom our behavior by unethically controlling their feelings arbitrarily
to accep this argument with keynes is to accept it with socialism/communism/fascism.. which are all experimental mixes of trying to get the unworkable to work, under the assumption that every problem has a solution, we just have to find it.
mathematical fallacy…
every problem does not have to have a solution, and in fact, once you get past small ones, its impossible to compute whether the problems stop or continue on infinitely forever in iteration and chaotic response.
what we forget is that even above this lower levels higher level is another level… and so goes applied metaphysics…
that is, there is a long chain of thought that we now are too ignorant or lazy or broken to see… and this chain unexamined, is whats remolding our society, invisibly…
its an game of entrapping logic without realizing that we are not trapped by logic, but can endlessly recurse and step out of such – all we need is will….
and only individuals have will…
Yeppers. Democrats only believe in and cite Keynes when it suits them.
and it is said the Devil can quote scripture when it suits him… (her?).. 🙄 8)
and lawyering the rules is not a valid to application in any real way, its a form of gaming…
Thanks for putting this thread back on topic, Artfldgr. I hope our hostess moves this troll’s pro-Marxist rants elsewhere.
“because people are no longer being taught operating principals behind things which makes them effective even on a ‘new’ problem.”
There’s no curiosity anymore, none of that older mindset, still extant in the Reagan years, that systems can be demystified, effort being the only price to be paid.
The Greatest Generation and the Boomers had had the childhood experience of taking jalopies apart and assembling them back again to working order. They put a man on the moon.
In the Reagan years, little kids could be seen sitting their tails off studying machine language (actually the more human-readable form, assembly language) lists covering the entire internal workings of an embedded control system. They grew up to know there’s nothing magical about those electronic machines, and more importantly, nothing that can’t be fixed.
Today? What do you do today with your black boxes? Auto mechanics just swap components until it works. A broken-down TV set is more cheaply replaced than repaired. When the exception comes and lines of control program code needs to be fixed, as with Toyota’s brake failure debacle, they entrust it to programmers in India who are adept because their childhoods were closer to what the Boomers had experienced. Manufacture is now wholly given to dirt-paid drones in China, as the “Made in China” label on just about everything today can attest.
The can-do spirit is gone. Extinguished. Not necessarily by a forceful hand, but often simply by lack of encouragement. Those “independent-minded geeks” at Slashdot are as bad at that as any Alinskyite–they do nothing but scoff, scoff, scoff at the prospect of starting to learn about computers from the machine level up rather than from the level of abstract, black-boxed, object-oriented form-filling down. They expect every embedded system to come with lavishly documented C or C++ source code, and are at a loss when they need to work out from machine language disassembly.
The tools we use to make our lives easier, including designing new things, are themselves too complicated to understand. Or maybe they’re not all that complicated, but they’re tightly sealed. Not necessarily physically, not necessarily by lawsuits (a whole ‘nother topic), but just by not having had, nor bothering to acquire, the discipline of closeness to the hardware, to physical reality. From the days of the Dot-Com Bubble, when people thought the rules of real-life economics could be ignored (like ignoring gravity!), comes this “No can do. Get another one or bring someone else to fix it” way of thinking, or should it be, unthinking.
Dependency. It forms in your head first, and then grows into a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.
SteveH
the same can be said for AT&T, Bell Labs, Dow…
i mean look how radical feminist Carly Florina gutted HPs innovative ability and turned it into a printer cartridge company… and one who had to play games with security over innovative excellence as a way to be.
where i work, the idea that a person they pay 6 figs to (if you include compensation and such) to do applications development for researchers on demand, has nothing to offer from his own self. ie… i am not an individual who outside of the orders of my master does not have any thoughts, but the thought of when will master need me again…
saddest part is that what i am doing is what the EXPERTS now are teaching people to teach others to do under the false idea that there is still self determination when there is social engineered outcomes…
in this way, a aspergers kind of guy like temple grandin, cant bring any of his work forwards… for what reason? none that the person is now considered defective, not gifted as he was when attending bronx sciecne and barnard baruch… or with the fortune 10s, or wall street.
no.. now i am subjected to an ideological view. and where temple grandin says that what needs to happen is that the person has to excell adn show their special talent, and THEN they will be treated normally by others.
but what if the expression of talent is not respected as he says, but instead is looked down on as the practices of an oppressor trying to push others down in the department? ie… to be respected you have to distinguish yourself, but if you try to distinguish yourself, your punished for oppressing others by competing and distinguishing yourself and tippling the level field.
now extrapolate that out to how thousands of companies operate, and have constitutionally illegal favoritism (as has been struck down by the supreme court).
if you ‘get’ this, then you can easily understand the death of competitiveness and such.
Einstein would have had his work torn up and rejected as he was not approved for such efforts, and he was not allowed to do anything else when he was a patent clerk…
when the cut off the top of the bell curve to make a plateau where lessers can feel superior falsely, and then support the system that does that…
you lose all the best people who dont happen to be socially adept manipulative and equal…
and if equal, there can be no talent
which is why there is this great effort on the left to show that talent is a trick of time. just read for 10 years and you to can be an expert.
you know what? in one month i beat out in things one can do and make and such, another man who i thought was my friend, who had been working at it for 40 plus years in the proper channels.
i was a fool to think that he would have control of his ego… no… passive agressively through lack of social reciprocation, and such leading me on for a time, used up my resources and such RATHER than otherwise.
so crippled that they cant take competition. so crippled that they cant be up front. so crippled that they would manufacture someone elses downfall to eliminate any example that shows that their way was not the only way…
again… spread that out to thousands of companies and the people who now are runnign them like Obama… using a cut down belief system to operate from rather than operate in the real world empirically.
in this new way, protecting fragile thoughts in delusion is the key… for if they fail, belief fails and if beleif fails the world is no longer going to be beautiful in atheistic fervor…
so every one is tasksed with constantly holding the right beliefs as that is the magic that makes it all happen… cargo cult image front wise…
we get a drought horse we all agree to call a mustang…
Artfldgr & ziontruth – excellent comments. Thank you.
the Viking
Thanks, Neo.
Well again, you’re more of a purist in needing to read and study and meditate on each economist’s theory, kind of like a pure mathematician as opposed to an engineer to applies differential equations to everyday life.
I’m more in the applied mode. I like getting the gist of the more colloquial theories and how they’re used or misused today by our federal nannies.
As far as my little superficial mind goes, you can learn all the basics you need to know right here in your comments section — here and now. Many of your commenters are very well steeped in the differences though they all express them in slightly different ways….
Bottom line, I wouldn’t over-think this one….let go and….let Hayek!
Donald,
i will bet you never actually lived in the system you advocate… period… i bet you have never had to live in another country that is a more average representation of living in the world…
ohhhh… everyone… come here… we have another person who thinks that you can establish a beach head in debate by putting the alternative point in naughty naughty land…
hey blind boy… if your nearsighted, and we are long sighted, all your rhetoric as to obvious, becomes a MR Magoo cartoon comedy for us.
So what your saying is that if i rob your house, the first thing YOU want is to move in with me… and that is the OBVIOUS thing…
how about this for an OBVIOUS answer… the false idea and beliefs handed to you rely on your ignorance to sustain… which is why, your cant get others to side with you IF they are capable of thinking DEEPER than you… which is why you have to attempt to shame them by using eruditious catch phrases like a parrot pretending to be a thinker.
“neocon informers”…
ah.. the great Moriarty of Marxism…
your analysis is completely faulty… period…
and i dont have time to go throuh its BS…
but do us ALL a favor… get a plane ticket, and move to one of the countries that already has what you want…
want to know why?
its obvious to anyone like you who wants to look 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
that they come here to get what they want, not to get back at the enemy…
your not even that smart…
oh. you MAY be able to memorize things…
rain man could too, but he couldn’t use the knowledge
what makes you think what you do is you completely think what others tell you to think… who told you that there were neocon informers? who told you X or Y? who gave you the catch phrases to parrot as if being a parrot of Einstein allows one to think like Einstein?
and your a father Coughlin christian… no?
Social justice etc…
the only people that use that term are anti-semites
and being that your a socialist anti-semite, that puts you way on the left in the fascist camp, a bit to the right of communism…
the fact that they have been pushing the Jewish conspiracy thing to the point where YOU think its valid, and belief it shows your core…
resolution 101/62ГС
Familiar with that?
plain old history… not even tin hat…
its from wiki… but you can confirm it many other history books… you know.. the stuff you DONT Read which makes it easier for someone to come over and play you for a fool…
ÑÐ¸Ð¾Ð½Ð¾Ð»Ð¾Ð³Ð¸Ñ familiar?
Soviet Anti-Zionism was a doctrine promulgated in the Soviet Union during the course of the Cold War, and intensified after the 1967 Six Day War. It was officially sponsored by the Department of propaganda of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the KGB. It alleged that Zionism was a form of racism and sometimes argued that Zionists were similar to Nazis. The Soviet Union was officially opposed to racism of any kind, and therefore Zionologists stated that they were not anti-Semitic or racist themselves.
Zionology was presented as a socio-political science, but there is little if any evidence that the Zionologists ever complied with the scientific method.[citation needed] In line with the official Soviet anti-Israel and anti-Western policies (which were the result of the Cold War), they frequently recycled older anti-Semitic libels while attempting to place them in a Marxist-Leninist context
and
“In late July 1967, Moscow launched an unprecedented propaganda campaign against Zionism as a “world threat.” Defeat was attributed not to tiny Israel alone, but to an “all-powerful international force.” … In its flagrant vulgarity, the new propaganda assault soon achieved Nazi-era characteristics. The Soviet public was saturated with racist canards. Extracts from Trofim Kichko’s notorious 1963 volume, Judaism Without Embellishment, were extensively republished in the Soviet media. Yuri Ivanov’s Beware: Zionism, a book essentially replicated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was given nationwide coverage.”
The forgery contains numerous elements typical of what is known in literature as a “false document”: a document that is deliberately written to fool the reader into believing that what is written is truthful and accurate even though, in actuality, it is not.[6] It is also one of the best-known and most-discussed examples of literary forgery, with analysis and proof of its fraudulent origin going as far back as 1921.[7] The forgery is also an early example of “conspiracy theory” literature.[8] Written mainly in the first person plural,[9] the text embodies generalizations, truisms and platitudes on how to take over the world: take control of the media and the financial institutions, change the traditional social order, etc. It does not contain specifics
Elements of the Protocols were plagiarized from Joly’s fictional Dialogue in Hell, a thinly-veiled attack on the political ambitions of Napoleon III, who, represented by the non-Jewish character Machiavelli,[10] plots to rule the world. Joly, a monarchist and legitimist, was imprisoned in France for 15 months as a direct result of his book’s publication. Ironically, scholars have noted that Dialogue in Hell was itself a plagiarism, at least in part, of a novel by Eugene Sue, Les Mysté¨res du Peuple (1849—1856)
original thinker… or cargo cult parrot?
i would say latter given your using the terms of the people in the “innocents clubs”…
Economics bores me. All my working life the economy has been like some failing elderly relative. How’s granny today? Granny’s been looking a little peckish lately. Granny ate all her dinner tonight….
So, having established my credibility to weigh in on this subject, I think it’s like the two opposite characters in War & Peace: Napoleon (Keynes) and old General Kutusov (Hayek). Unfortunately, our national temperament is closer to the activist Napoleon than to the, if you will, laissez faire Kutusov.
neo-neocon said, “So it may be that Keynes was a lot more moderate in what he was advocating than is commonly thought.”
This is more prescient than you probably know.
The two men knew each other well, and Keynes actually agreed with Hayek that a mostly free market was preferable to a centrally planned economy.
But like all of liberalism, Keynes ideas were based on emotion. He simply wanted the government to temporarily intervene in the natural course of events to reduce the hardship and pain created after the business cycle peaked and started to turn down. Like all of liberalism, he had the best of intentions, but didn’t understand the unintended consequences that it would lead to expanding government power.
Hayek did understand it. He understood that once the government started intervening, it would never end. It would ultimately lead to government taking an ever growing role in the economy — reducing individual freedom and liberty in the process — and put us on the “The Road to Serfdom”.
When Keynes formulated his theory, government was less than 10% of GDP at a time when GDP was tiny. Today, government spending is 25% of GDP in a $15 trillion economy. U.S. government spending today exceeds the entire GDP of Germany, which produces the 4th largest GDP in the world.
So many people are now dependent on government that any prospect of cutting government spending, even in the face of running ruinous deficits, is politically extremely difficult.
Hayek has clearly won the argument.
It’s simple arithmetic….
http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/08/03/report-obama-administration-added-95-billion-in-red-tape-in-july
Note this comment particularly from the above site I linked:
” Borrow and regulate to death
Since our current debt of $14.5 trillion is 145 times $100 billion, we will take at least 145 years to pay it off at the rate of $100 billion per year, interest
not included. The interest is $250 billion per year. When the interest
is included our new total pay off amount is at least $29 trillion on
the current loan amount, but could be much higher. However, we plan to
borrow much more – an additional $12 – $14.5 trillion in just the next 10 years. What have we done to our nations’ children…and their children….and their
children…and counting? Talk about living like parasites on…our own
offspring.
Can you imagine? Debtor says, “I would like to borrow some money.”
Creditor says, “And what do you owe now?” Debtor: “So much I need at
least 145 years to pay it back.” Creditor: “Tell me your plan.”
Debtor: “I have no plan to pay it back. I will only pay the interest.”
Creditor: “You want your kids, grand kids, and great grand kids to
pay it back?” Debtor: “It will be very painful for me not to get the
loan. I will print up some money if I need to.” Creditor: “You have
no plan.” Debtor: “I am working on a plan to increase my loan amounts by
6.5% year over year instead of by 8% year over year.” Creditor: “You have no plan to balance the budget, you plan to keep borrowing 6.5% more each year
than you did the year before…forever, you print up money, you dump your debt on 3 future generations and counting, and you want us to believe you have integrity, and are worthy of full faith and credit?” Debtor: “I want
what I want when I want it, and I want it right now. Give me the loan or I will print money.”
We have taxed a hundred million people who won’t be conceived for
50 -100 years. But that has not been enough for U.S. We have taken
some of that tax money and used it today to fund the abortions of plenty
of those presently conceived. First we assaulted those in the womb.
Now also we assault those who have. not. even. made it. there. yet. We
are without defense.
[report comment]
mourn of TX @ Aug 04, 2011 11:16:34 AM “
Simple arithmetic!
Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell (Dec 28, 2010)
Good point, Scott. I thought Keynes had largely renounced his own theories at the end of his life. And Artfldgr: fine form. This was a very enjoyable thread. F, kaba, Don Carlos, PF, and all the rest, this thread fills me with hope that we will educate the next generation. The narratives are starting to turn around.
Webutante, great article on Bernanke. What a bum.
And Neo knows more than what she’s letting on. Foxy, using the Socratic teaching method.
Webutante: my point is that as far as I’m concerned no, I cannot learn all I need to know about the theories of both men in this comments section (and despite the fine work everyone has done; I salute you all!). I already knew the basic summaries and outlines. That’s not what I go for, though, when I’m trying to objectively evaluate something really important—because I have so often found that, when I look at things more closely, I find surprises, and often the surprises matter.
That doesn’t mean I’ll take the time and trouble to really delve into the works of both men very deeply, although I’d like to. My list of must-read books is already so long that it would take many years to plow through it. So, we’ll see.
It seems that our new troll Donald is one of our old trolls. Stevie must be feeling homesick.
I was gonna ask who that nonsensical rambling idiot was…
Well, Neo, I can’t disagree with your wonderful style and substance….it’s why you’re here running this here site today and I’ve been out hiking….wearning myself out.
But I’ll still make a prediction: the slowand/ or sudden contractions of the financial markets—with a few expansionist bounces—over the next few years will make Hayekers of us all no matter what we call ourselves.
In the meantime since you’re still delving in, shoud we rename you a Kayeker?
Much as I am a follower of Hayek and would like to see the government get the hell out of the way, the fact is, there is an ineluctable problem from significantly reducing the size of government:
Ever since Sumer, fewer and fewer people have been needed to actually produce the things that we need to keep civilization going. A handful of farmers now produce all the necessary food, a handful of factory workers produce ever-increasing amounts of goods, plus we shift production overseas. Medicine improves infant mortality and survival from disease and accident.
Result? An ever-growing number of less and less useful children of the middle class who think they are entitled to a “meaningful” job.
What are we going to do with them, if not give them government jobs and/or law degrees? Thus we have the entire paper-circulating bureaucratic apparatus.
C.M. Kornbluth was right in “The Marching Morons,” except we don’t have our surplus population making things in factories which are shipped to other factories to be demolished, we have them generating laws, regulations, policies, edicts, etc., which are sent to lawyers, accountants, compliance officers, HR departments, etc., who generate policies, handbooks, practices, etc., which lead to audits, appeals, lawsuits, etc., which in turn leads to more laws, regulations, and so forth and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
We have to figure out how to solve this problem before we can move to a Hayekian economy.
Webutante: no, I’m a Hayeker, till further notice (you might call me a Hayeker-lite).
Hiking sounds like fun. The weather has been really nice this summer here.
OK my dear, Hayeker lite it is for you, and Hayek fully leaded for me!
Glad you’re having nice weather there….I feel guilty that it’s in the high 70s out and partly cloudy which makes getting out into the mountains perfect!
Keynes, Digger of Holes
– –
All governments are Keynesian, and just as insane as Keynes was. Amazingly, the US and China (among most other governments) use the following logic:
(1) When it rains, many people use umbrellas.
(2) If we make people use umbrellas, then it will rain.
Don’t believe me? Here is the exact logic of the US and China (among others):
(1) We have measured GDP (Gross Domestic Product) at different times.
(2) During times of prosperity, GDP is high. This makes general sense; people are producing more stuff.
(3) We can raise GDP (by definition) by building more stuff, by borrowing and collecting high taxes. In the US, it was the stimulus package, financing millions of houses, and ongoing bloat in the federal and state governments. In China they are building cities. By definition this increases GDP.
(4) Wait a bit, prosperity is sure to come.
We know that “location, location, location” are the top three criteria for valuable real estate. China has now built thousands of buildings in the wrong locations. The US has built thousands of sidewalks in the wrong locations (a small part of the stimulus).
According to government accountants, this has all added to GDP. We are all waiting now for the prosperity that is sure to come. And the rain.
The miracle of central planning…
Great comment by richard saunders…
Richard Saunders is quoting through paraphrasing Marx…
if the population was not dumbed down, licensed to death, and so on… they would, as always, keep disrupting economy with new things..
however, if they are dumbed down, unable to understand principals to assemble their own ideas. and self determination is negated by social engineering. there is minimum wage, and all that and more..
then no… you find that fascism prevents all other ideas from growing like weeds in favor of that structuyre that he is describing…
ie… its not capitalism that creates that situation, its the hybird fascism, as chrony capitalism for the ignorant, that does that… as the state and companies collude with each other and cause the rules to force ideas, capital and such to be centralized in the hands of a few companies, a few people, a few this or that which are easier to control, regulate and administer.
if the westerners were not so ignorant, they would be smart enough to see the game being played on them.
do you left idjits really think that the communist chinese government feeds those billions by their orchestration? or do most of them all feed themselves in a pseudo free market ouside the range of the state power?
ie… where there is no state power, they live as they have for 1000 years… where there IS state power, everyting is in constant disruption to favor the state, who is powerful enough to pick out the nice beans from the pile once they shake it up.
right now:
Thanks to the neo libs, communists, anarchists, socialists, fabians, prograessives, and any other SYNONYMS you want to use…
the uber wealthy and powerful are orders of magitude MORE powerful
that while they are parroting a marx thye never read, and dont know it (or do and are inserting it), they are standing on the edge of ruin and still going on and on prattling the words of a prophet from 1850… who like david koresh, the sex communes of the midwest, jim jones, and all that have a following that caught on, as the (despotic few) wealthy found it was conducive to them
how so?
easy… prior to the socialist constructed bubble… how much did a wealthy person have to pay for property for their projects and how much did eminent domain before kelo adjusted and so allow now for them to do literally anything as they have pocket money
let me give a fast lesson in this game i learned from a social register debutant and family. (not that anyone will listen as i have yet to change my tune and yet to be wrong on the large flow of things… go ahead, check!)
taxes tax income… not wealth (and thats good)
but the rhetoric and game is about taxing income… the bridge to wealth, which is the income you can hold onto.
a unconstitutional (violating equality before the law) progressive tax favors the wealthy by huge amounts while appearing to marxist mathematical dumbed down people, to do otherwise..
want to slam the rich? then make a 10% tax…
whats income? increased value from what you had before? what do you get to claim? nothing… do you tax business… no… business is only an administrative entity, and so cant be taxed any more than the state can invest or make real jobs (That arent a burden)
want to favor those wealthy super powerful men.. then side with marx, side with the games, and so, look around you.
the left facilitated the conditions necessary for the most powerful robber barrons of today… TAKE A LOOK
salaries are down… but they are borrowing at near zero interest from us shmucks and buying property at bargain basement prices… among other things too.. as people are selling off their collections, valuables, gold, etc.
rather than make a vibrant middle class where some kid can invent and make sometrhing…
the left has beaten up such kids in favor of american idolatry… why would they want to invent, make a job, and so on? WHY? heck.. why would a middle clas boy want to marry? to learn what peonage means if his flip of the coin is negative?
right now, the ONLY ones with options are the people that all this was supposed to harm… they were not harmed one bit, the shell bounces off them and hits the regular people, which gets them to fire more shells and hit the regular people.
and soon.,.. you have a 50 years living expectation as in russia… rampand male alcoholism.. rampant prostitution as gifts are allowed… no capital to make anything grow unless connected to the power structure…
welcome to the world that socialism promised and lied about.
and only fools will think that this will turn around better with more socialism…
you cant go fast on a race track and make the end of the race if you keep draining the oil pan and gass for other things like maybe a hot dog on a stove… or something…
experience means more than fantasy and belief and blind faith… since fantasy and belief and blind faith through emotionalisms games and other games to unseat merit and empiricism and crippled people from looking up to such (which crippled them from being functionally able to do anything), have now placed us where?
note that mobs of african americans pulled people out of cars and beat them last night in wisconson.
in philadelphia, they showed up at a bus stop and shot it full of bullets… of course, THEY get to carry guns,m whilke the good citizens dont… which is why no one shot them
when they start contracting beneifits…
it will be like slovakia…
and a few other places as the people have no self control, they were liberated from that., and so as i said long long long ago.
they are facilitating the putting on of the collars now..
and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it now..
and all those who followed this with good intentions, are EXACTLY the same as those that followed national socialism and social justice before… (in 1933 germany)
oh. and he is quoting the Luddites…
The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying mechanized looms — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life. The movement was named after ‘General Ned Ludd’ or ‘King Ludd’, a mythical figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest
The principal objection of the Luddites was to the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers.
anyone who thinks that such updated ideas are brilliant, are basically the definition of Luddite!!!
and by their own hand too… as this idea is so old…
Neo-Luddism
Neo-Luddism is a personal world view opposing any modern technology[1] that displaces workers and increases unemployment. Its name is based on the historical legacy of the British Luddites which were active between 1811 and 1816.[1] Neo-Luddism includes the critical examination of the effects technology has on individuals and communities.[2]
Reform Luddism is an offshoot of Neo-Luddism and represents a personal world view skeptical of modern technology and critical of many purported benefits.
a personal version which tunes this to a personal thing does nothing to asuage the core beleif…
meanwhile.. look to the stars and such..
how can you run out of space?
how can you run out of material as its only remolded like clay and never used up (with the exception of fissionable material in a nuclear reactor)
the only thing stopping us is the planners..
they dont want us to have the high ground of the stars and a boundless border inw hich they cant control what happens inside and choose for those who live on their animal farm.
this is why the radiation storage bs is to make containers for 5k years… a ridiculous goal that sets up the argument of not using nuclear material as we cant reach that goal
meanwhile, on the eve of commercial flight to space, we cant see you can put it in boron glass and send it off to the sun? 5000 years to store it on earth?
luddittes are luddites no matter how erudite and wrapped the ideas are…
sad thing is that most of this all is OLD ideas…
and old ideas in opposition to our natural beings…