dutyje:Anyway, direct violence will soon become obsolete as the weapon of choice in war. This, in my opinion, is the reason we should quit directing our defense budget towards more refined means of killing people. The downfall of our great empire will come from a spectacular direct attack very different from those which are so vivid in our memories and our history books.
urbino: kuzi16:the manner that goods are traded; how the markets are; the existence of goods and services have a nature. that nature is to find a price that people are willing to pay for them. the government cant set a price on gold because that will great a false high price or false low price. a government is an ineffective way to control the economy. Sure. But sometimes markets overshoot the bottom or top. We're seeing a case of the latter right now with the housing bubble. These events create unpleasant externalities that are appropriate for governments to address. One way to address them is try to put rules in place that make overshooting less likely. These overshoots can also create huge transaction costs (inefficiencies) that are bad for the economy in the long-term. Governments have a legitimate interest in trying to prevent these, as well.
kuzi16:the manner that goods are traded; how the markets are; the existence of goods and services have a nature. that nature is to find a price that people are willing to pay for them. the government cant set a price on gold because that will great a false high price or false low price. a government is an ineffective way to control the economy.
dutyje: urbino:I'm not sure why people seem to think WWII wasn't a massive gov't spending program that interfered in a huge way with all kinds of markets. Because it involved guns... lots and lots of guns... and they're really cool. It isn't really socialist if they're taxing the bejeezus out of everybody to buy lots of guns. Anyway, direct violence will soon become obsolete as the weapon of choice in war. This, in my opinion, is the reason we should quit directing our defense budget towards more refined means of killing people. The downfall of our great empire will come from a spectacular direct attack very different from those which are so vivid in our memories and our history books.
urbino:I'm not sure why people seem to think WWII wasn't a massive gov't spending program that interfered in a huge way with all kinds of markets.
urbino: Your second quote isn't really on point. The author is making a point specifically about an argument that wealth misdistribution was a major factor in causing the Great Depression. I don't think anybody here is making that argument.
kuzi16:the other way to address this problem is by letting the market fix itself. when houses got too high there was a correction in the market. It was drastic. housing lost value because it was too bullish for too long. the market is correcting it even as we type. home sales in California are now up 60% from this time last year. why? because all the foreclosed houses are on the market now ad a drasticly lower price. this is the correction. I never said it would be pretty, and in fact may hurt people. those people should never have entered those deals and those banks never should have made the loan. its their own fault.
kuzi16:... guns are really cool.
kuzi16:when your country is under attack by *** there are few that would argue that fighting them is bad. like i said before, a social system will work only if damn near 100% of the people are for it. in that case, people were for it. Im not saying it wasnt a social program. im saying that it was wanted by everyone, so it worked.
urbino: Again, sure, but what about all the externalities and inefficiencies created by just letting markets skyrocket and crash, willy-nilly?
urbino: I absolutely agree that the banks should never have made those loans. Since the loans are not the cause of the scale of our current crisis, however, let me go further and say banks and other financial firms should never have then leveraged the hell out of those mortgages. Those banks and firms deserve to crash and die. Unfortunately, however, their crashing and dying causes huge problems for lots and lots of businesses and people who had nothing to do with those bad decisions. Those folks are in no way at fault, but they're getting crushed anyway, and the overall economy is losing their productivity, skills, products, and services. Why should that be allowed to happen, just in the name of market purity? It's economically inefficient, morally unjustifiable, and socially destructive.
urbino: kuzi16:when your country is under attack by *** there are few that would argue that fighting them is bad. like i said before, a social system will work only if damn near 100% of the people are for it. in that case, people were for it. Im not saying it wasnt a social program. im saying that it was wanted by everyone, so it worked. Except that it wasn't. The Republican Party opposed our entry into the war from the time it began until Pearl Harbor. That is, it opposed our entry into the war even while/after Nazi U-boats sank our ships in the North Atlantic. It opposed even helping England, which is why FDR had to sneak the aid through congress under the Lend-Lease Act. Every candidate in the GOP presidential primaries in 1940 opposed our entry into the war. The conservative wing of the party opposed our involvement all the way through to the end. Regardless, under your economic theory, wouldn't we have been better off to let market forces determine what war materiel got produced, in what quantities, and at what price? Wouldn't we have been better off to let market forces allocate domestic goods and set the prices for them, rather than having rationing and price controls? Wouldn't an unfettered market have met our wartime needs more quickly and efficiently than gov't control did?
kuzi16: urbino: Again, sure, but what about all the externalities and inefficiencies created by just letting markets skyrocket and crash, willy-nilly? i wouldnt go so far to say "willy-nilly" but the pure system is designed to teach people a lesson when they make poor decisions. those people (in a purer system) should and would be punished by losing everything. however like described before, this isnt and hasnt been a pure system.
dutyje:I say, let 'em crash!
kuzi16: i wouldnt go so far to say "willy-nilly" but the pure system is designed to teach people a lesson when they make poor decisions. those people (in a purer system) should and would be punished by losing everything.
kuzi16:the high-ups of those companies should be brought to trial very enron style.
kuzi16:(but they wont be because they are all friends of the now president elect ... but thats another argument)
kuzi16:the money should go to the people (if we were to do a bail out) so they can pay off their loans or at least part of them.
kuzi16:as far as being economically inefficient... is what we are doing now any better? no.
kuzi16:Morally unjustifiable? how about punishing those who caused the problems? would that help?
kuzi16:Urbi, always a pleasure.
phobicsquirrel:this is still going on? hmmmm....