12-21-2013 06:50 PM
#301
| |
| |
12-21-2013 07:01 PM
#302
| |
Renton, what does morality mean to you? | |
Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 12-21-2013 at 07:04 PM. | |
12-21-2013 07:31 PM
#303
| |
|
The point is more that the markets handle the system in aggregate better than laws. Which they do. Not only does legislating morality not work, it exacerbates problems and creates additional ones. For example, the drug war is pretty much entirely legislated morality. |
12-21-2013 07:39 PM
#304
| |
|
Markets assess value of your capital far better than any morality or government can. Supply and demand is just a crazy awesome phenomenon like that. Things like rent controls have mutli-pronged negatives by subsidizing low value of certain citizens, which disallows growth and immigration of high value of others, while also decreasing growth in opportunity for those subsidized. This hurts everybody, and it's in place because people don't like change and governments rubber stamp it |
12-21-2013 09:36 PM
#305
| |
The problem with your logic is that need isn't objective, but subjective. There are a limited number of generators and a greater number of people who need generators. However, they need these generators in varying degrees. One person needs a generator to so he can use facebook and play Playstation. Another needs it to continue doing his business which he feels is vital. Yet another needs it so he can keep his insulin refrigerated. A small medical practice might need it in an even greater way because it has ten patients and needs power to vital systems in order to continue treating them. | |
12-22-2013 06:46 AM
#306
| |
Renton, my logic is appropriately subjective and objective. The weakness with yours is that it's too objective and this should be obvious. Remember, we're talking about the Philippines during and immediately after Typhoon Hiayan and not a few weeks later when it might be possible to survey the entire marketplace and come to rational pricing and logistically match up needs with resources. | |
| |
12-22-2013 06:55 AM
#307
| |
I'm failing to see how your system creates an effective signal for more generators to be supplied to the area. I'm assuming you are in favor of a FEMA-type organization that apportions resources and stimulates supply. But we've seen how ineffective such organizations are. I think you are also greatly underestimating the speed with which a market would adjust during a disaster. The prices could coordinate within a matter of hours. | |
Last edited by Renton; 12-22-2013 at 06:58 AM. | |
12-22-2013 07:00 AM
#308
| |
Dude, a typhoon just hit. If you're making generators, I'm sure you'll sense an increased market demand. And the market will come back into use quickly after the disaster has passed. Just as impromptu marketplaces set up some time after Haiyan. But during the mayhem, is what your video was on about. | |
| |
12-22-2013 07:09 AM
#309
| |
Re: generators, I'm not talking about producing them, but distributing them. If generators are selling for 1300 dollars in hurricane afflicted miami, distributors of generators in neighboring cities like Orlando will respond very quickly with supply, which will push the price back down and make the shortage less severe. | |
12-22-2013 07:20 AM
#310
| |
It all sounds like it requires communication across the market that would not exist during a typhoon. | |
| |
12-22-2013 07:34 AM
#311
| |
Well, I'm sure Dasani is always happy to have an uptick in water sales, even at the pre-disaster price, you're correct that there will be "some increased market demand." But it would never be the same response. It would be a weaker response. Supply and demand are simply far more responsive to one another in a free market than in a price-controlled market. I'm not sure how that is even arguable. Less incentive = less response and greater delay. | |
Last edited by Renton; 12-22-2013 at 07:36 AM. | |
12-22-2013 07:43 AM
#312
| |
You're not arguing with me any more, you're arguing against price controls and all that. My position was that the morality of the free market given in your video was not the best method to address the needs of people in the situation it described. You keep trying to shove me back into your economics world by fitting what I'm saying into what you understand. | |
| |
12-22-2013 09:09 AM
#313
| |
I'll try to get at my point in a different way. I would like to observe that Typhoon Hayain leveled the infrastructure necessary to conduct a free market. Because of this, using free market analysis to find a way to alleviate the needs of those on the ground during the disaster makes little sense. | |
Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 12-22-2013 at 09:13 AM. | |
12-22-2013 09:43 AM
#314
| |
We are inundated with propaganda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model | |
| |
12-22-2013 12:57 PM
#315
| |
Well you have direct communication which your contention is that typhoons would interrupt or severely damage. But even still, there would be stores nearby or adjacent to one another competing at price gouging. Two gas stations on the same corner competing to sell gas at a gouged price, for example. Competition like this requires very little actual communication. And in a disaster like a tornado or earthquake which affects isolated parts of a city, there'd still be intact communication for a majority of sellers. | |
12-22-2013 01:20 PM
#316
| |
|
I knew somebody would point out that I said "don't have" instead of "don't have Orwellian levels of", which, for the most part, means we don't really have it. Virtually all the propaganda you would point to in the West is a Huxleyan version, not an Orwellian. Fox News, for example, is propaganda, but not state propaganda. It's not Orwell. It's all about private interests and that dollar dollar bill. The West has very little state run propaganda. Even the stuff that is state influenced isn't Orwellian in nature |
12-22-2013 01:50 PM
#317
| |
|
Which is the same thing, at least in this context. The market includes virtually everything anybody would choose to do. Choosing to allocate generators during a disaster for free is a market behavior, and so is choosing to send money to a disaster relief fund. The issue here is that laws exist that try to solve perceived problems, yet they don't. |
12-22-2013 02:21 PM
#318
| |
Yeah, I remember reading an interesting article on how disaster relief can actually do harm. The way this works is that when there's shit going down in South Sudan that causes throngs of refugees to be displaced and be without, savvy business men in Kenya and and Ethiopia know not to load up the trucks, because they'll be effectively competing with unbeatable competition. Their competition is not selling, but giving it away. Now when disaster relief pulls out, there's this shock to the system, because the supply chains haven't organically set up since the disaster. | |
12-22-2013 11:48 PM
#319
| |
|
Welfarism happens after taxation; socialism happens before it. Welfarism is "let's have the government tax private entities to pay for services to benefit the welfare of the people"; socialism is "let's have the government manage production so that everybody gets what they're prescribed to need" |
12-23-2013 05:44 AM
#320
| |
I think there's a reason you always see economists and libertarians (and especially libertarian economists) harping on about rent controls and price controls on basic goods. It's because these are examples of price controls that can easily be illustrated and demonstrated to be very harmful to society. It's simple to mentally sort out why these types of price controls do great harm to the very people they are meant to help. | |
Last edited by Renton; 12-23-2013 at 05:51 AM. | |
12-23-2013 11:58 AM
#321
| |
Don't knock emotional stuff. Evolution makes you feel compelled to save your sister from harm for good reason. Evolution makes you hate price gougers for another. It might not have a consideration for the logic of your modeled understanding of free market interaction, but hey no model is perfect. As George EP Box said, "all models are wrong, but some are useful." | |
| |
12-23-2013 12:31 PM
#322
| |
Rilla, let's not conflate the defense of the right to price gouge with promoting price gouging. | |
12-23-2013 02:19 PM
#323
| |
I'm not. I just don't think that if, in a hurricane, a neighbor asks for your generator to keep her insulin fridge running, giving it without cost is a mistake. | |
| |
12-23-2013 05:19 PM
#324
| |
This is good. Definitely anti-capitalism too, so relevant. | |
| |
12-23-2013 05:56 PM
#325
| |
|
I'm not sure I agree much with the video. Everybody has a description of what caused the economic problems, yet strangely most of them are not economically sound. These sorts of things are so culturally pervasive that anthropologists and geographers seem like they should get a say, but the problem usually just boils down to a few technicalities, which appears to be the case this time too. |
12-26-2013 11:06 PM
#326
| |
|
If you think about it, Obama is a free market champion. The capitalist-constitutional view for healthcare insurance is to have private industry run everything while the government guarantees that the law applies to everybody equally. This is basically what the ACA is. I wonder if the libertarian/anarcho-capitalists, who basically end up using theory of mass insurance to explain why protections exist in a stateless society, believe that even without a state to guarantee access to insurance, all are insured. Given that virtually everybody except a small handful of extreme hardliners thinks that the state should exist in order to guarantee these sorts of civil rights, I wonder why people are against the ACA in the first place. It's a libertarian's wet-dream. Well, if the libertarian understood his own ideology, that is |
12-27-2013 12:34 AM
#327
| |
Well some of the ACA is pure price control, which any one in favor of liberty should be against. Forcing insurers to charge the same for women, for instance, is fucking ludicrous as women require loads more healthcare on average than men do. And obviously people with pre-existing conditions should have to pay more for insurance in accordance with the increased risk they impose. Nothing wrong with having laws that keep insurers from defrauding people, but many of the provisions of the ACA are a bridge too far. | |
12-27-2013 01:07 AM
#328
| |
|
It's a great price control. Great for the economy? Maybe not, but civil rights -- equal treatment under the law -- are integral aspects of societal governance. The constitutional principles that guarantee equality under the law are among the greatest improvements in the history of civilized society, and if we're going to abandon them for a market theory, that market theory has to provide for that equality. But the markets have shown that they don't account for all these concerns, and the fact that the ACA has price controls like the one you mentioned demonstrates the inadequacy of pure markets, not just the inefficiency of government. The stance that a stateless society can be Utopia is no different than the communist extremist ideals of a classless society. Both cherry pick what they want from history, and neither account for the necessary attributes of the other. |
12-27-2013 02:01 AM
#329
| |
|
I think equality should be put into perspective because usually when we lay discuss it, we bastardize it. Basically, the US judiciary has determined that the constitution requires that some level of equality under the law must exist, but the SCOTUS gets to be the final arbiter of where the line is drawn. The constitution is generally vague on the specifics, but the principle is still deeply embedded, so it can't be ignored. It can be said that the judiciary is just an arm of the people, which is demonstrated in that its power comes from legitimacy and the SCOTUS almost never takes the controversial position. Its interpretations of the constitution have been overall very consistent on fundamental levels, but given the complexity of the issues, this has involved about-faces on specific issues. Still, the rulings have been based in a handful of principles regardless of the specifics. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 12-27-2013 at 02:07 AM. | |
12-27-2013 03:11 AM
#330
| |
How do you make the logical leap from "there should be equal treatment under the law" to "people who cost far more to insure should nevertheless pay the same low price as lower risk insurees?" And since when is equality = giving shit to people who don't have enough shit? Welfare is a completely separate issue to equality under the law and should be treated as such. I have no problem with a position that is in favor of welfare, but with citing equal treatment under the law as the reason. | |
Last edited by Renton; 12-27-2013 at 03:14 AM. | |
12-27-2013 01:39 PM
#331
| |
|
I was trying to give perspective for why it's reasonable to claim that discrimination against the sexes for healthcare is akin to the other sorts of discrimination we consider wrong. There are all sorts of price controls embedded into treating race and religion the way we do, and we should apply the same logic to the other areas that we consider equally important to protect: sex, gender, sexual orientation. |
12-27-2013 02:23 PM
#332
| |
Blacks are at higher risk for a number of medical ailments. Should we be able to charge them more for healthcare? | |
12-27-2013 10:27 PM
#333
| |
| |
12-27-2013 10:31 PM
#334
| |
The problems with healthcare aren't especially because of insurance companies fucking people over, they're systemic within the entire healthcare industry, from doctors to pharmaceuticals on down. Most of these problems would be lessened greatly if there wasn't an AMA or an FDA. | |
12-27-2013 10:39 PM
#335
| |
But realistically it was this or nothing. Of course a single payer option is better, but that wasn't a realistic end game in this world. | |
12-27-2013 10:59 PM
#336
| |
|
Honestly I'm unconvinced that a single-payer option is better. With a handful of the right regulations (and a lack of the wrong ones), private industry should be able to achieve lower costs and a better user experience. Governments do have negotiating, innovative, and competitive power, but I can't imagine it can compare to what the private market can achieve. Under the ACA, each company will have incentive to provide better coverage for cheaper prices than the other companies, but when the government runs its own insurance, it tends to be able to outbid initially but not have as much incentive to improve |
12-31-2013 08:27 AM
#337
| |
Did I win this thread? | |
| |
12-31-2013 11:29 AM
#338
| |
So the vid in rando thread about the guy who's daughter died of cancer got me thinking. | |
| |
12-31-2013 12:21 PM
#339
| |
I'm no expert, but the way I understand insurance is exactly that it is a community subsidizing itself. All of the people who have various forms of insurance with a company pay a small monthly fee. This money is used to pay for the tragedies that are insured against, no matter to whom the tragedy happens. It is a system whereby the entire community of insurance holders with that company all pay for the tragedies that befall the community. | |
Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 12-31-2013 at 12:46 PM. | |
12-31-2013 02:10 PM
#340
| |
|
That sounds about accurate, but it's a mistake to assume that capitalism addresses everything. Capitalism is better for a bunch of very important things than any other system by far, but it isn't the only aspect of society. So if somebody says "well capitalism is immoral because it favors 3 and 4", I get to say "well capitalism isn't supposed to fully address this problem in the first place". |
12-31-2013 02:54 PM
#341
| |
|
However much you may hate it human life has a monetary value on it. Everyone should get a basic level of health care but sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand and that sucks dick. Obviously if you had a child who had some rare disease where the only treatment cost £1 million and had a 10% chance of survival if you had the money you'd cough it up without a doubt but I don't think you should expect society to cover the cost because they can't. |
12-31-2013 03:20 PM
#342
| |
How many layers of profit are in that million? | |
| |
12-31-2013 03:59 PM
#343
| |
12-31-2013 04:06 PM
#344
| |
| |
12-31-2013 07:38 PM
#345
| |
|
yaaaayy somebody reads my poastsssss |
12-31-2013 08:14 PM
#346
| |
See, but that's just the thing, the Koch's brand of capitalism didn't save civilization. New Deal capitalism saved it. But welfarism has been maliciously or unintentionally conflated with communism-- so much so that proponents of welfarism themselves identify as being socialist leaning. | |
12-31-2013 08:31 PM
#347
| |
|
Hmmm, I'm not sure what I'd say to that, because it's tough to quantify exactly what saved civilization, what the Koch brand is, and what the New Deal brand is. Overall, I'd say the idea of private enterprise is at the heart of it, and that's something the Koch brand endorses, regardless if they know how to fully implement it or sustain it. As for the New Deal, I need to learn far more about it to say for sure, but I do think a lot of the props it gets for things like solving the Great Depression were really solved by monetary policy of the Fed |
12-31-2013 11:46 PM
#348
| |
Sample size IMO. It's very hard to establish clear cause-and-effect relationships with economics because time is so short. The 50s-70s prosperity could just as easily have been thanks to the comparatively worse effect of WWII on other countries than ours as it could have been thanks to the new deal. Same thing when X presidential candidate says Y incumbent's administration has crashed the economy. It is more likely that economies cycle of their own accord and do not respond to the mere whims of presidents. | |
01-01-2014 12:27 AM
#349
| |
|
While I agree they don't respond to mere whims of presidents, political economics is far behind academic economics. Unfortunately, we don't see this because so many are enthralled by the political aspects. The amount that can be derived from correlations is pretty huge, but most of what enters the political sphere is not that which is derived from known correlations. |
01-01-2014 04:03 AM
#350
| |
|
What does profit margins have to do with it? At times very little, at times lots. Wasn't really the point. |
01-01-2014 04:25 AM
#351
| |
01-03-2014 03:24 AM
#352
| |
Thesis of this presenter: the rich are not job creators | |
01-03-2014 01:44 PM
#353
| |
|
It's terribly simplified, and if he knew better I would also say it's also disingenuous. IIRC the reason TED didn't like that presentation is because it was low on the substance, not because of his point. |
01-08-2014 12:07 AM
#354
| |
Chrony capitalism and free market capitalism are not one in the same . . . that is all | |
01-08-2014 12:38 AM
#355
| |
01-08-2014 12:44 AM
#356
| |
I would agree the chrony capitalists version is definately a better plan than chrony communism/socialism , I think you can look at history for that fact to be proven . I think capitalism receives a lot of hate when in reality its not the system but the people running it that cause the problems ! | |
01-08-2014 12:55 AM
#357
| |
So crony capitalism allows the current major superpowers to emerge with massive prosperity, every shift from semi-controlled economies to less controlled ones, as in India, has had the same effect. Yet for some reason U.S. and Western Europe trend back toward controlled economies. At least, they want parts of the economy to be controlled, entire sectors like healthcare, education (including higher education), and agriculture. I'm so tired of getting accused of hyperbole on this "its not the USSR" shit. Yes, when your government controls like 35% of the economy that's akin to communism, dude. | |
01-08-2014 01:12 AM
#358
| |
Bingo , which is why the usa will continue to follow the democratic party to total socialism/communism . It will take a crash ala the soviet union before a reversion back to more free market capitalism occurs . Big governments always trend to communism once they start growing its tough to stop the thirst for control and power ! | |
01-08-2014 08:46 AM
#359
| |
Haven't you been reading wuf's posts about capitalism with welfareism vs socialism/communism? It's not communism just because the government funds healthcare and education because the means of production, and the relevant dependent manufacturing are still under a capitalist system. | |
01-08-2014 02:23 PM
#360
| |
But they're not. The government isn't just subsidizing these systems, it's telling the providers of these services exactly how they should do their work, and forcing its subjective and often arbitrary morality onto them. | |
01-08-2014 02:24 PM
#361
| |
| |
01-08-2014 02:42 PM
#362
| |
Large clients have a lot of sway over providers regardless of whether they're government or private. Wall-mart has sway over its providers and they have to bend over backwards because it's in their best interest to. I don't see how that is even coming close to approaching communism. The communism rhetoric really does just seem like libertarian hyperbole for "the government is controlling something". | |
01-08-2014 03:42 PM
#363
| |
The government not only telling me I have to buy a product but the exact product I have to buy is not socialism/communism you have to be fucking kidding me right ? How did you kids graduate high school ? | |
01-08-2014 04:07 PM
#364
| |
OK you're right. When the government coerces insurance companies into charging obscenely unprofitable rates to its customers, that's not communism yet, its socialism. When said insurance companies go bankrupt because of this and the government bails them out and owns them, then that will be communism. | |
01-08-2014 05:49 PM
#365
| |
I feel like this is becoming too focused on obamacare, which may indeed be a mess, but the whole American health care system seems to be a bit of a mess to begin with. I was initially responding to your comment about western countries moving towards controlling economies with regards to healthcare or education. | |
01-08-2014 06:18 PM
#366
| |
|
Ironically, it's probably more accurate to call the ACA more socialistic than Medicare-for-all. This doesn't mean I'm not a fan of certain socialistic elements. It's probably okay for government to regulate certain things in business. I guess you could say that's socialistic, but it's problematic to say if we do that, we're now in socialism or communism |
01-08-2014 08:53 PM
#367
| |
|
A pretty great, relevant post by my fave economist that deals with why smart economics is so counter-intuitive |
01-08-2014 10:13 PM
#368
| |
|
I'm reading through some of his archives, and came across this very compelling claim |
01-09-2014 12:12 AM
#369
| |
|
Man so many gems in his archive comments. This was back when Sumner first created the blog to shine a light on how everybody was reading the 08 crisis wrong, so it was small-time at first and he explained loads of topics very well in comments section |
01-09-2014 02:04 AM
#370
| |
The American and Canadian governments both spend almost 45% as much as their GDPs. Not in capitalistic ways, more like in ways I described in my FAA anecdote. The US federal (30) and state (10) governments own over 40% of all the land in the U.S. including as much as 95% in western states like Nevada. In light of these facts how is it hyperbolic to state that that countries like the U.S. and Canada control over 1/3 of their economies? I think it's an understatement. They spend over 1/3 of it based on the whims of a congress that anyone on either side of the aisle would admit is as corrupt and incompetent as any congress in American history. And this isn't even to mention all the absurd and destructive price controls they impose on on all aspects of the economy. | |
01-09-2014 03:12 AM
#371
| |
Look at whats being done with online gambling then try and say with a straight face america has any form of "free market capitalism" ! Every single industry is regulated to prevent the free market , not push it . Within a 5 year time period they made it illegal , took down the industry leaders , and then made it legal and handed out licenses to the big casino industry . Entrepreneurs got screwed and a bunch of chrony capitalists will get rich . This has been the repeated story in every industry since the 40s . | |
01-12-2014 02:14 PM
#372
| |
| |
01-16-2014 11:37 PM
#373
| |
|
I'm trying to figure out exactly what I think the government should be involved in. At this time I've a question for Renton: how do the free markets stop companies from colluding to not hire each others' employees as a way to suppress wages? Apparently reports are showing the big players in Silicon Valley have been doing this on the hush-hush. ISPs collude in other ways (keeping prices higher than they need to be), but also on the hush-hush, because if the colluding can be proven, some very important people would get in legal trouble. I think I can figure out how the markets would stop the ISP type collusion, but not the Silicon Valley type. |
01-17-2014 02:30 AM
#374
| |
Well, there's no law in libertarianism against employer collusion, admittedly. Employers reserve the right to mistreat their employees as long as it doesn't violate the NAP, and employees reserve the right to negotiate better terms. | |
Last edited by Renton; 01-17-2014 at 02:36 AM. | |
01-19-2014 08:50 AM
#375
| |
| |
| |