**** Elections thread *****

[boost]

I've never heard the term in my studies. So I looked it up and notice Joe Stiglitz has popularized it (or helped to do so). It's worth noting that his thesis regarding why market fundamentalism doesn't work is contradicted by his explanation for why it doesn't work. He makes a common mistake of saying that we don't have a free market therefore when our non-free market failed it means the free market failed. This sounds really stupid when put in direct terms like I did, but trust me it's a very common mistake.

You do the inverse all the time.

"Even though we don't have a planned economy, this problem with the economy is due to these aspects of it which resemble a planned economy."

[wufwugy]

You do the inverse all the time.

"Even though we don't have a planned economy, this problem with the economy is due to these aspects of it which resemble a planned economy."

If it seems I make generalizations like this, it is not my intention and I apologize.

The distinction I am attempting to make here is that this mode of logic is wrong: we lived in a particular type of situation; failure happened in system; therefore the aforementioned particular type of situation is a failure. That mode of logic is wrong, at least in the situation I am referencing, since the premise is false. We never lived in that "particular type of situation" in the first place, so failure within the system is not evidence of failure of that particular type of situation.*

That is a mistake I try to be aware of and not make myself. I try to keep my logic as follows: we live in neither a fully planned nor fully free situation; failure has happened within that system; here's how that failure could be attributed to government planning. If I don't give as specific of details as you would like, ask me please.


*This is a chief criticism of mainstream economists' political claims from a subset of economists (and others) who favor free markets. Both of my macro professors, both of whom are mainstream, claimed that the Great Depression was an example of failure of the free market; therefore regulation is needed. But they are wrong that the Great Depression happened in a system of free markets. It was the most intensely regulated market in American history up to that point. And not only that, but free market economists have since detailed extensively exactly how the system collapsed due to what regulators did (namely, the Fed). That view has since become consensus by the Fed since. At least it was until 2008, when the Fed made the same damn mistake, which resulted in crisis that sent many economists scrambling to rationalize in the same false way their erstwhile colleagues did regarding the Great Depression.

[Jack Sawyer]

That is a mistake I try to be aware of and not make myself. I try to keep my logic as follows: we live in neither a fully planned nor fully free situation; failure has happened within that system; here's how that failure could be attributed to government planning. If I don't give as specific of details as you would like, ask me please.

And yet the fully free market system is without fault. Nothing can go wrong there, ergo a failure in that situation is surely impossible.


What do you think about drugs, wuf? Should one be able to buy weed over the counter? What about cocaine? Heroine?

[wufwugy]

And yet the fully free market system is without fault. Nothing can go wrong there, ergo a failure in that situation is surely impossible.

That is not and has never been what I have stated. In fact, I have stated the opposite, that it is a faulty system and that failures happen in it. The difference is that I use facts and reason to analyze economics, markets, and government -- unlike how most people do it: with emotion.

Tell for cognitive dissonance:

When someone restates your persuasive and reasonable point as an absurd point in order to refute it

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1308234...ith-some-trump

What do you think about drugs, wuf? Should one be able to buy weed over the counter? What about cocaine? Heroine?

I wonder what you think I think.

[Jack Sawyer]

And not only that, but free market fundamentalists have since detailed extensively exactly how the system collapsed

There, ftfy

[wufwugy]

There, ftfy

Most of them were scientists doing scientific research.