Newbies

New Friends

Neodoxy — Sat, 04 May 2013 02:36:09 GMT

I have no idea what's happened over the past week, but we've obviously got a sudden influx in new members, which is pretty exciting since we've only gotten a handful of new people this year.

So welcome! You can use this thread to introduce yourselves, and I hope that we'll enjoy what you all have to contribute in the coming months.

Also, this thread might help you

Edit

Also something that I'm curious about, how did you guys find the forum? I'm just surprised that we've gotten so many new people so fast.

What is the definition of "Keynesian"?

No2statism — Thu, 09 May 2013 01:45:59 GMT

I was told that monetarism isn't keynesian, but I had thought it was because I believed that Keynesians wanted to create demand to generate wealth and that monetarists thought that govt controlling the money supply would regulate demand.

Any answers would be appreciated.

A newbie question and newbie idea.

Nicholas James Evans — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:51:59 GMT

Hello everyone, I am new to this community. What brings me here is the fact that I am an anarcho capitalist who wants to converse with and get to know other people who share similar interests. My reason for creating this particular post is that I had a question about the meaning of something in Ludwig von Mises book, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.

I fail to comprehend the following quote:

"In no circumstances can the sum expended on wages exceed the income for any length of time."

At no fault other than my own do I not understand this. I was hoping that someone could explain what it means and why it is so. I might be embarassed to read how simple and clear your responses are, and to think that I couldn't figure it out on my own, but hey, I would rather look silly than not know what he's talking about!

As for my newbie idea, I think it would be great to have a dedicated section for community Q and A. I was thinking that it could work similarily to Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers, in the sense that the community could ask questions and give answers to topics related to Austrian economics, a stateless society, etc. Members of the community could vote on what the best answer provided was, and use a search tool to see if their quesiton has allready been asked.

It wouldn't be for discussion like a regular forum, but instead for Q's that can get A's.

I suppose that the forum may be a better way to get answers in some circumstances, since questions don't always have a clear and agreed upon answer.

Just my thoughts! Anyone like or dislike the idea?

Is it possible for the government to artificially lower the price of gold/silver?

Elijah — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:58:58 GMT

My wife and I save on a regular basis. I personally love the idea of owning precious metals, and do purchase them often. We're throwing around the idea of keeping all or at least most of our cash above our emergency savings in precious metals. On one hand, I can see a huge safety net in converting cash to gold/silver in a atmosphere of inflation. On the other hand, I'm concerned that the government can artificially "devalue" or otherwise manipulate the markets or the dollar and crush a portfolio that is 95% metal. My biggest fear is that I'll (hopefully) have 10s-100s of thousands in Gold and BAM, they announce a new currency like the Amero or declare a new value of the dollar and my portfolio takes a massive hit.

I follow Ron Paul somewhat closely and have read several of his books, including End the Fed. It seems that in his opinion along with others including myself, that the Fed is just pumping fiat money into the system and haven't even began to see its effects. Eventually there is no other option but inflation, right? Is there ANYTHING else that could happen besides inflation?

I'm looking for opinions of those older and wiser than me (I'm 25) to give an opinion of allocating a large percentage of a personal portfolio to metal--tangible, hidden on my farm, metal. Thanks in advance for your opinions!

Free market money question.

No2statism — Wed, 01 May 2013 21:14:06 GMT

Does the govt stop creating new money under free market money, does the competition from other exchange mediums freeze the supply of govt created money?

I just don't see a system of free market money existing long term in anything but a free society or a confederation (the Articles of Confederation was a free market money document).

Going back to the classical gold standard wouldn't work because then the gold supply would be partially nationalized and there would also be market distortions from deficits and surpluses.

If the classical gold standard is brought back, then the Constitution should be amended to prohibit the govt from monetary nationalism (i.e., no mints) and entering into international money agreements and repeal all federal taxation except either borrowing and dispersing to the States based upon representation or nothing more than taxing 5% of the gold each time it leaves the borders. That way, 95% of the gold supply would not be nationalized.

Even with a Constitutional amendment, it could still be totally ignored or repealed by supermajorities in Congress and 3/4 of the States so I must conclude that we'll never get out of slavery since centralist States must distort the natural order of the market.

Do you think time preference is heritable?

No2statism — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:51:23 GMT

If so, then do you think it's the only factor? What other factors do you think may be involved in whether a given individual has low or high tme preference?

I think it's biological, but then my mom's family would indicate otherwise because my grandparents didn't have high time preference but two of their 5 kids do (one of those two got all their savings).

My dad's whole family has super low time preference, however. Also, time preference varies based upon ethnicity so that's really the main reason I think it's heritable.

Misean Regression Theorem ??

fustruly — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:28:12 GMT

Hello everyone! I am new to Austrian economics and am trying to understand the Misean regression theorem and how it applies to fiat money and debit cards.
If a nation were to start a new fiat currency with no intrinsic value and did not charge taxes, am I understanding correctly that the Misean regression theorem states this would never actually achieve the status of money? And if it did charge taxes, this would instill an intrinsic value, and so it could achieve the status of money? What if the money were tied to another money, as the Omani rial is to the dollar - does this instill an intrinsic value in the medium?

How does the Misean regression theorem apply to digital representations of money exchanged via debit cards? Why do these seem to have achieved status as money (or am I just wrong about that)? Does it have something to do with the fixed exchange rate between dollars and digital dollars (not sure about terminology here)?

Thanks so much for any help you can provide!

Austrian Defense of the Euro

No2statism — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:05:00 GMT

In An-Austrian-Defense-of-the-Euro (link), is he saying that centralized monetary policy combined with decentralized fiscal policy is beneficial? I don't understand what he's trying to say because I'm just dumb.

How are interest rates set?

jimaustri123 — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:50:09 GMT

Hi,

I have often wondered exactly what the factors involved in interest rate 'fixing' are.

I hear the central bankers set interest rates at artificially low levels and have been holding them there but how are they able to do this? Just trying to think through how this actually occurs.

When the monetary policy committee come out of a meeting having agreed that the interest rate should be changed by a half a percent, for example, what actually transpires to make that a reality?

Bonds: yields and interest rates

jimaustri123 — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:23:56 GMT

I know next to nothing about bonds and I gather the bond market is a key component to understanding current economies.

I understand what a bond is but I'd like to know:

Is the 'yield' the same as the interest rate and does the interest payment/yield get paid regularly? And if it is paid regularly e.g. monthly, is that payment subject to fluctuations from one payment to the next? i.e. it's not like a variable rate on a mortgage.

Cheating on gameshow violates NAP?

Blargg — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:00:10 GMT

I just watched a YouTube video about someone who cheated to win Millionaire (Major Fraud). I'm trying to figure out whether this is a violation of the NAP. It seems not. I'd imagine that contestants basically make a contract that they won't cheat, and if they are found to be cheating, will have their prize revoked. Beyond that, I don't think there was any aggression. I suppose it could be framed that they paid him for what he clamed was a genuine performance, but it turns out he misrepresented himself as a contestant and thus defrauded the show.

Need some help.

TheIndividualist — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 21:58:36 GMT

I am engaged in a debate with someone over the issue of the Jim Crow South and how the free-market failed to self-regulate itself in those areas. Citing that " libertarians beleive in the invisible hand which doesnt exist at all. " and cites economists such as Joseph E Stiglitz to back this claim.

How would I approach this?

Help Me learn how to think things through systematically

Atreides99 — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 04:58:45 GMT

So I downloaded "Thinking as a Science" by Henry Hazlitt by this website and have an introduction to logic book that I got off of amazon and I have two logic questions that I'm curious about.

I've seen articles here that will say things like say they will quote a liberal thinker saying something stupid which I totally agree with and then they will respond to this by saying "that sounds a lot like the rhetoric of Sir Oswald Mosley"- though entertaining to me isn't this phrase guilt by association?

Also I noticed that Stephen Kinsella will start talking about patent and copyright laws by saying their terrible origins is this okay simply because he is stating the facts or is this a little bad way to have an interview since this is breaking the fallacy of genealogy. Also the same could be said of the terrible origins of every public education system would this not also be breaking the same fallacy by argueing this way?

Please help me get a leg up here guys. Thanks.

Rejecting Marx, Keynes, AND Mises; Reviving Classical Liberalism, Biblical Economics, and Georgism

Confessed — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 01:40:28 GMT

My article exposing Ron Paul as a globalist seeking the old world’s one world currency is getting a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on forums discussing the article still have not awakened to the importance of the Endgame Ron Paul represents on the Grand Chessboard of the Red Symphony.

The awakening to the crimes of the New World Order is being misdirected into the worship of one man, Ron Paul, and into a blind faith of a false economic paradigm of crony capitalism and corruption of free markets of the worst kind by government, the Austrian School of Economics, funded by the same people, the Rockefeller Foundation, who take an active part in the funding and control of the New World Order. What is really dangerous is that it is sold as the opposition to the New World Order and as the opposition to crony capitalism and corruption of free markets by the government when it was funded by the New World Order and when it is crony capitalism and corruption of free markets by the government.

Ron Paul’s various esoteric associations are irrelevant. What is relevant is Ron Paul’s role in herding the stray sheep of politics, upset at the Republicans or Democrats, towards a false paradigm of economics. What is important is how brainwashed, militant, and intellectually dishonest these supporters of Ron Paul are. They resemble fascists, promoting a crony capitalism which resembles a new type of feudalism, while calling themselves defenders of capitalism, free markets, and classical liberalism. They do not listen to what you have to say. They are not there to learn. They are there to beat a drum of free markets and anarchy while at the same time they promote corruption of free markets by the government, without even being aware that is what they are doing. You can’t even crack a joke about Ron Paul without them going ballistic.

Some people defend Ron Paul on the basis that he is a gateway to the proverbial red pill from The Matrix. This is somewhat true. I was a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party until I left the party in 2001, mostly because I felt it had a brainwashing effect. I was amazed at Ron Paul’s popularity during the 2008 elections. I started to poke around YouTube to find out why he became so popular. What I discovered was people talking about the CFR, 9/11, the New World Order, and Alex Jones.

It was an interesting journey. It took me awhile to come to terms that 9/11 was an inside job. I did not want to believe that it was possible for such to be an inside job. However, the hard science and all the soft evidence indicated it could have been nothing else but controlled demolition. Alex Jones opened me up to a lot of things. After I predicted the collapse of the Dow and the swine flu outbreak, I stopped listening to Alex Jones. I had watched Zeitgeist and Bill Still’s documentary and started to really think about monetary policy. This is when it finally hit me that Ron Paul was a Benedict Arnold.

I realized that Alex Jones was allowed to do what he did because he was herding those awakened to certain things, such as 9/11 being an inside job, towards Ron Paul. Alex Jones was a gate keeper. Ron Paul in his own right is also a gate keeper to herd those who were socially liberal and fiscal conservatives.

I already had intuitive disagreement with the Libertarian Party, specifically the Austrian School of Economics, over monetary policy and over the land issue. Dan Sullivan had awakened me somewhat to these concerns. However, it wasn’t until Bill Still and Alex Jones that I realized the true purpose Ron Paul served for the New World Order.

Anarchy is a foundation for feudalism, where lords lead knights, hold claims to land, and negotiate contracts of slavery and serfdom with the peasants where the serfs gain protection from the land baron while they are allowed to exist to work on the land and pay tributes or rents to the land barons. The land barons were the government, and they were ultimately fascist governments. Anarchy is also a foundation for tribalism, but tribalism tends to be more left-wing than the right-wing feudalism, since land and people are usually not viewed as property under tribalism and since tribal barter systems are more honest.

The system of feudalism developed in Europe when the Roman Empire fell. It should be important to note that the Roman Empire was built on cheap money, bronze and later silver coins, for 240 years, where the value of the money was more than the value of the metal in the coins, and that it started to crumble when Rome abandoned bronze coins and went onto a gold and silver standard in 50BC when the idea of gold as money was started. In 23BC, cheap money of bronze and brass coinage was again monetized but quickly demonetized. It was attempted to monetize bronze coins once again after collapse, but it was too late. This idea of gold as money carried into the Dark Age of feudalism. Feudalism eventually developed into monarchism and eventually once again into the idea of the republic and representative government.

However, along the way, from the Roman Empire to our modern governments, monetary and land issues were often poorly implemented, and the toil of the working classes were often taxed, leading to a crony capitalism at the benefit of the aristocrats, the land owners, the bankers, and other wealthy interests who lived off land rents and interest, despite the common religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam speaking out against the taxation of labor and the profiteering off land rents, interest-bearing money, and financial capital not produced with toil.

The classical liberals and American independence was a big leap forward in trying to address the land issue. It was the early American immigrants, who lived in Europe under the burden of land rents and taxes on their toil paid to land barons and monarchs, who had the lack of access to cheap money to engage in economic trade and pay such taxes, who had to instead borrow expensive money at high rates of interest and volatile value from bankers, who met native populations who did not even believe in money and land ownership, and who were casting off the crony capitalism of monarchism.

All the classical liberals identified land, capital, and labor as the components of production. They identified land as something unique, where the rights to land should be preserved but not the profits off the land. They all believed that land was best to have a tax imposed on it since it was unearned wealth and so that the land would not be monopolized by land barons, making land more affordable for all. The classical liberals respected earned income and did not impose taxation on wages. The classical liberals and the native Americans were your true champions of free markets, the economics of the Bible, and anarchism, where government acted to secure that all had rights to land and their labor, but not the right to profit off land rents through government written and enforced title to land.

While the classical liberals were not successful of casting off interest-bearing money, George Washington did finance the American Revolution with debt-free sovereign money, the Continental. While the colonies had problems with the colonial currencies, the colonies were successful in making use of various forms of cheap currency to pay taxes and engage in trade. Unfortunately, the colonies often relied upon gold to trade with Europe. The Southern colonies even commonly accepted Spanish gold notes for payment of taxes.

The U.S. Constitution did recognize the folly of having several different colony currencies due to commodity-based currencies, like agricultural products, corrupting free markets, money market traders profiteering off deflationary and inflationary currencies, and other problems. This was in part due to Adam Smith writing about the problems of the colonial currencies in 1776, in Wealth of Nations. The U.S. Constitution limited the States to gold and silver coins while leaving it open for the Congress to issue and regulate the legal tender, whatever the legal tender might be. I believe the classical liberals stuck with gold since it was the one world currency at the time. Europe primarily used gold, and it was necessary to use gold to trade with Europe. They also offered silver as a cheap alternative.

However, this brings up why Ron Paul is so dangerous. Supporters of Ron Paul claim that Ron Paul believes in “free market” currency, not a return to the gold standard, because Ron Paul simply wants the government to interfere in free markets and accept gold and silver for payment of taxes. They suggest that we currently do not have a free market in silver and gold as currency. They suggest that the government must take action to make them “free market” currency. How Orwellian. Ron Paul supporters defy reason and logic.

Libertarianism as promoted by the Austrian School of Economics is the crony capitalism of a return to feudalism. The Austrian School of Economics wants us to repeat the failures of history rather than learn from them. There is a true libertarianism which mirrors true classical liberalism. However, that true libertarianism is not the libertarianism which Ron Paul promotes.

Most Ron Paul supporters believe government is force and is always bad. I did have a discussion with one Ron Paul supporter who admitted that government force is good if it used to enforce free markets. Unfortunately, he believed free markets meant the crony capitalism of Ron Paul, that government should be used to enforce land monopoly and monetary monopoly. Government force is good if it is used to enforce free market principles that labor and capital is your own, that land and the profit of the land is for all, and the public’s legal tender should be debt-free and free of the economic rent and interest of commodities.

The Bible and Antiquity even promotes these free market principles of true capitalism. The Bible promotes a more true capitalism than Ron Paul. Unfortunately, those who state belief in the Bible, such as Ron Paul, reject the principles of economics in the Bible in favor of the Rockefeller Foundation’s economic paradigm of crony capitalism, where land and money are treated like any other capital and where taxation on your toil is justified if done in a flat [regressive] way.

I am agnostic and am aware of the economics of the Bible. Many who claim faith in the Bible are not even aware of the economics of the Bible, other than tithing the church and letting Caesar have his gold. I would say letting Caesar have his gold is a statement against hard currency, but I’m not sure the context makes that implication and is simply making a statement against materialism, as the purpose of tithing is a statement against materialism, to be willing to let go of a portion of your wealth, to have faith in God rather than materialism. The people who believe in the Bible are not aware that the Bible is in favor of the taxation of land values through the 50-year land lease and Jubilee, against the taxation of labor and real capital, and against debt-based money.

There are supporters of Ron Paul who literally want the Anglo-American Empire to fall like the Roman Empire and enter into a new Dark Age. While I agree with them that our current system is corrupt, it is not beyond repair. While I agree that it deserves to fail, failure into a new Dark Age would not make things better. It would only make things worse. We would enter a new age of feudalism. We would repeat history rather than learn from history. We would be paying land rents to land barons, paying land rents and interest on gold to bankers of the land barons, and making tribute payments on our toil to those with the most guns who control land and gold, if we are lucky enough to survive the chaos. I assume that those who control our banking system, their corporations, and their governments, would not allow things to reach that point, as much as they work to repress understanding of true classical liberalism and true libertarianism.

If Ron Paul was elected and the Austrian School of Economics became as mainstream as Keynesian economics, those who control our banking system and their corporations would still be in control. We would repeat history with frequent banking panics, boom/bust cycles, and monetary changes to accommodate a return to a gold standard or some variant of a commodity-based and interest-bearing currency beneficial to bankers and those who profit on debt. They would even call such currency “sound” and “honest” free market money, while gold, silver, and notes of chartered banks are declared legal tender by the government. Even worse, with the Austrian School of Economics equating land and money to capital, like Marx did, we’d see a return of landed feudalism.

We’d have to watch our public infrastructure be privatized. Our roads would be sold to aristocrats and transnational corporations and transformed into toll roads for a transnational corridor. We, the People, who built the roads, would now have to pay tolls to use them to private corporations. We would see the same with the community hospitals, parks, and other public infrastructure. We already see this happening now.

We’d have to watch the states to get rid of the remaining property taxes that the classical liberals gave us as they implement flat and regressive income taxes and sales taxes to fund governments, directly enslaving us in the worst possible way, especially for the working class and youth. We’d see the wealthy and corporations buy up the land, as they even deduct the buying up of America on their taxes. We would see increased rent and decreased maintenance of housing, since the only tax incentive would be to monopolize the land rather than develop, maintain, and use land efficiently for the demands of the free market.

We’d see prices for gold and silver sky-rocket in price as the government interferes in free markets of gold and silver and free market currencies by accepting them for payment of taxes. We’d see the government become commodity traders under the banner that the government is promoting free markets. We’d see the interest on debts, public and private, increase, with the force of government interfering with free markets, and we will hear that the wealthy bankers and the wealthy are getting richer because the government stayed out of the free market. It is not right for the working class to do all the work and be loaded with more debt than they earn, while the banks have lavish buildings on every street corner and the tallest towers in every city for doing nothing but charging usury upon the public’s money supply while mismanaging and misdirecting the money supply into boom/bust cycles.

We’d continue to see our jobs outsourced and off-shored due to the increased taxation on wages to the point where we will eventually be willing to work in sweat shops for China and India for wages that would barely pay land rents for a slum. We’d see increased poverty for a majority of Americans while a small minority of Americans would see increased prosperity, as we are seeing already.

We’d see another Great Depression, where first by inflation of a cheap debt-based currency and then by the deflation of an expensive commodity and debt-based currency, we’d literally wake up homeless on tax-free land monopolized by the crony capitalists Ron Paul embraced rather than opposed. We would become a pathetic banana republic rather than the republic for and by the people the classical liberals hoped we’d become. The demands for socialism would be greater, not lesser, under Ron Paul’s crony capitalism and various austerity programs.

Ron Paul is exactly what the globalists would want. That is why they funded the Austrian School of Economics. Ron Paul is the Hegelian dialect and a false paradigm that would enable the slavery of the masses, especially if he has dedicated and passionate support behind him, who falsely believe they are repressed and disenfranchised champions of free markets when in reality they are champions of the crony capitalism of King George and his gold bankers and land barons. Even if the media criticizes Ron Paul, often for the wrong reasons, the media is solidifying his support. Bad press is good press for celebrities. It increases their popularity as people try to defend their favorite celebrity.

Our only hope is in educating the masses on true classical liberalism and true libertarianism to reform the system with a populist message of no taxation of toil, no national debt, public debt-free money, and land value taxation. Henry George and the classical progressives had great success in the late 1800s as the classical liberals in 1776 had great success. There is an opportunity for classical progressives to reform our system towards a more robust implementation of classical liberalism.

We do need to break the monopoly the banks have on our government and our economy. We do need to break the monopoly the banks have on our understanding of political economy given to us by them with Austrian School of Economics, Keynesian economics, and Marxism. We would need to break free of the three neoclassical schools of economics which equate land and money to capital and regain a true understanding of classical liberalism and true libertarianism, where land and money are not capital of the free market but unique creatures of the state with unique economic concerns which can be used to fund government, rather than the slavery of taxation on wages and real capital.

The debate, after the national debt is ended with public debt-free legal tender, after wages are untaxed, and after land values are taxed, should be on when capital ceases to be real capital of earned income and when it becomes usury and economic rent of unearned income. The debate should be on whether there should be a public option in insurance or not. The debate should be on how small government should be and how much land rents and monetary value should be returned to the public as a citizen dividend.

The debate should not be about the worship of Ron Paul, the blind faith in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Austrian School of Economics, and the crony capitalism of the Austrian School of Economics, modeled on the crony capitalism of the Old World’s feudalism and sold in an Orwellian way as being the classical liberalism and opposition to crony capitalism. The last thing we need is an ignorant mass in blind worship of a man and in blind faith of his false economic paradigm. Progress towards free and fair markets requires reason. Blind faith leads to a dark age of austerity and crony capitalism.

Not my article but any thoughts on this critique

Article found here: http://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/awakening-to-ron-pauls-crony-capitalism/

Shortages conceptually non-existent in free market?

Blargg — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:22:55 GMT

I had the thought that as far as the market "perceives", there are never shortages. Supply and demand vary continuously, and prices keep some number of products on the shelves, but not too many. In times where supply suddenly drops, prices suddenly rise, so that just as before, some people buy the product because it's worth the cost, and others don't buy it because it's not worth that much to them. Except for things of unlimited supply, prices are never so low that everyone who has any use for an item actually buys it in the quantity the could use it in, so supply is always a limiting factor in this regard, not just during so-called shortages.

I guess what was interesting for me was that thinking in these terms changes the framing of so-called shortages. It bypasses the special-case thinking one might engage in when supply suddenly drops. "Oh, there's a shortage, we need to suspend the free market to deal with it!" No, wait, there's just a change in supply, and like before, there will be some limit on consumption, and the old mechanism of price will work just fine.

Why is empirical evidence not supported by Austrian economics?

No2statism — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 20:25:51 GMT

I was thinking it is because not all evidence is necessarily unequal to all other evidence, because there are too many types of evidence and because evidence (especially when attempted to be made hierarchical), doesn't lead to the truth more than half the time.

Why is empirical evidence not supported by Austrian economics? What was wrong with my reasoning and/or how did it not apply?

Why was ''western'' capitalism superior to Soviet Socialism..

Rugged Free-Marketeer — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 18:46:30 GMT

in raising the standard of living for the masses?

Soviet apologists usually make 3 claims for why this was the case.

A) Capitalist countries had the advantage of many years of industrialization, while the Soviet Union had to begin from feudal-esque systems present in Russia and Eastern Europe.

B) Capitalists had access to markets in their colonies and neo-colonies.

C) Capitalist countries received investment from their capitalist buddies e.g. Marshal Plan

What Communists et al, are usually trying to say when they make these contentions is that, 1) capitalist nations, like the U.S., were only superior to the USSR because they ''exploited'' the underdeveloped areas of the world, by implementing loyal dictatorships to gain cheap resources, etc. and 2) the only reason the ‘’bourgeoisie’’, and their lackeys in government, focused on investments for raising the standards of living of the masses was to buy the loyalty of the ‘’proletariat’’ in the western capitalist countries.

I'm wondering how people here would respond. Thanks for your time.

But the gubmint created the internet!

Rugged Free-Marketeer — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:08:36 GMT

I'd like to know how people here respond to common arguments by Socialists et al pertaining to government, not private capitalists, as being the creator of the ‘’most important’’ technology, such as the Internet.

Primitive accumulation.

Rugged Free-Marketeer — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:36:31 GMT

What's the Austrian view on what Marx describes as the ''primitive accumulation of capital'' in part 8 of Capital Volume 1?

Soviet healthcare.

Rugged Free-Marketeer — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 05:14:54 GMT

I'm searching for an accurate account of the Soviet healthcare system… preferably a highly critical one. Article and book recommendations would do just fine as I don’t expect anyone to type out a wall of text that systematically examines all aspects of the Soviet healthcare system.

My entire family, including myself, are from an ex-Soviet state, so I know about the absurdities of the health care system, such as people bribing doctors, bureaucrats, etc., but I’d like a scholarly examination of the Soviet healthcare system because people don’t take personal experience seriously in arguments. It’d be nice to be able to provide a few quotes from a scholar.

Thank you for your time.

Rothbard quote on 'elastic demand downward'...

jimaustri123 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:13:43 GMT

Hi,

I was just listening to a Mises Daily Audio entitled 'Is Greater Productivity a Danger?' by David Gordon, who quotes Murray Rothbard:

"A technological improvement in an industry will tend to increase employment in that industry, if the demand for that product is elastic downward so that the greater supply of goods induces greater consumer spending. On the other hand, an innovation in an industry with inelastic demand downward will cause consumers to spend less on the more abundant products, contracting employment in that industry. In short, the process of technological innovation shifts work from the inelastic-demand to the elastic-demand industries. Financial crises may interrupt growth but given the unlimited character of human wants, they cannot permanently supplant it. "

My question is why is he using the word 'downward'? Seems to me that he is describing demand that is elastic upward i.e. in the direction of greater production and consumer purchases/sales.

Maybe I'm missing something. Could someone explain this to me?

What kind of gas am I?

No2statism — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 13:35:01 GMT

Are they like a poison in the air to you? I already have an idea as to people I gave bad gas (John James used to get bad gas from them until he put me on his ignore list), who gets no gas from them by their own choice and awareness (Clayton probably had me on ignore from the beginning), the one who gets good, laughing gas from me (Autolykos likes me because he thinks I'm cute, but he knows I'm not logical and that's probably what it is about me that he finds cute) and then the one who is impervious to gas and logic (myself). As for the Good Conservative (as in right-wing Randian libertarian) Bert... he seems like he got bad gas from the bullying people he went to left-wing school with... if he's still in the VA Beach/Portsmouth/Southside area, then he's not far away from me. I feel guilty for graduating from CNU partially because Bert had to go to ODU while I was more of an ODU person and Bert was more of a CNU guy. I also worry that I drove Liberty Student away. He was good and cool and I miss him. He probably still posts here under a different name and I don't even realize it.

I just knew what was right, but I couldn't always prove it was right... I had to stimulate minds. I'd rate myself not more than a 40% since the Constitution intended for people like me to be 3/5 of a person (even though 3/5 was not the right number for that all things considered. I'm Indo-European, a wandering beast to Europeans because I'm Originally Indo-Aryan on my matrilineal lineage... my mtDNA haplogroup is H which simply micro-evolved from mtdna Hg R0<--N<---L. However, the man whom I currently believe is my blood father is pure white, because of his maternal lineage and he is probably either R1b or of Jefferson's patrilineal lineage... I forgot the letter and its specific subclade of Jefferson's Y-DNA, but I know that the patrilineal origins of my dad and possibly my own are similar to Jefferson's).

That said, I'm not racist; I'm just aware... I do believe most steretypes are currently more than half true and so they wind up being just over half true all things considered. Stereotype-as-truth, however, will be abolished once the U.S. Republic becomes the U.S. Empire (Romney will be half-President and half-Emperor; Obama will be the Last President of the U.S. Republic and the Last American Jeffersonian Blood... Dr. Paul is a Jeffersonian in mind and Flesh and Blood, Obama is only Jeffersonian by Blood ) and when the Final State of Israel collapses and is replaced with No State of Israel.

Let me know what you think about all this... I hope that I won't be banned for this and I'm not sure if this was the right place, but I really am a newbie.

Academic Degree in the Philosophy of Economics? Is it worth it?

Sarah Kotyk — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 15:21:20 GMT

Hello ,

Here's my problem:

Since I want to become an individual investor. I'm seeking out the non-typical path which is through formal study in educational institutions. This is to prepare me with more knowledge than one without formal study would have - in other words arming me to the teeth. I know that one doesn't need any formal qualifications to become an individual investor but I perfer to be "armed" before I enter my designation.

In terms of formal study , I was thinking of a degree in the philosophy of economics because there are so many problems with mainstream economics that learning it would be a disadvantage.

The philosophy of economics seems to be a good choice because of the very fact that it is an uncommon route that is relevant to the subject (hence one may appeal to employers because one is uncommon/rare). It shows that you are a deep thinker as philosophy involves questions to think about which can be "deep" in nature. Also , philosophy itself helps one to be enlightened about deep questions on things. Though not necessarily solving such matters most of the time , much of the time it still provides hints on which action to take (as knowledge increases about the question , that is). Thus is could provide guidance on what actions to take when one is attempting to gain from the markets.

I still have doubt though , alot of doubt.

That's why I have a set of questions I would like to ask to those who may know if this is the right action to take:

-do you feel as if you have a general sense of direction in terms of what to do to take advantage of the markets after you have studied the philosophy of economics?

-Do you regret studying the philosophy of economics? If so what would you have studied instead?

-What skills have you acquired after completing it?

-What other knowledge do you have that would be important for me to acknowledge in my context?

Thank's for reading. I hope you help me resolve this dilemmia.

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