Economics Questions

Re: Some Thoughts.

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:09:46 GMT

CrazyCoot, this is not a place for petty swipes such as that.

Re: Some Thoughts.

liberty student — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:02:45 GMT

I will get back to this topic...

Re: Some Thoughts.

EconomistInTraining — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 21:58:57 GMT

You come across as a self-satisfied little expletive Student

Thanks for that. Great input, I mean it, that's a really superb contribution you've made there.

Re: Some Thoughts.

CrazyCoot — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:54:44 GMT

You come across as a self-satisfied little expletive Student.

Re: Some Thoughts.

EconomistInTraining — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 01:30:29 GMT

I will get back to this topic...

Re: Some Thoughts.

liberty student — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:09:26 GMT

scineram:
Don't entrepreneurs make educated guesses to set prices? Models aren't churning out those numbers.

You tell me. I am asking you to clarify which definition of arbitrary you were using.

Also, if you could explain what is educating the educated guess, that would also be helpful.

Re: Some Thoughts.

scineram — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 01:43:35 GMT

Don't entrepreneurs make educated guesses to set prices? Models aren't churning out those numbers.

Re: Some Thoughts.

liberty student — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:59:11 GMT

scineram:
Businesses and enterpreneurs assign prices arbitrarily.

Depends which definition of arbitrary you use. Can you clarify?

Re: Some Thoughts.

liberty student — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:58:31 GMT

scineram:
There are more important things than consumer satisfaction. Like homicide rates.

Might as well have said, "There are more important things than values. Like values."

Re: Some Thoughts.

filc — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:48:29 GMT

Scineram:
Businesses and enterpreneurs assign prices arbitrarily.

So what happens when Walmart prices a good higher then consumers are willing to pay? Who bears the cost of this error? What happens when government allocates more resources on a project then they should, who bears the cost of that error? How is it you don't understand the functional/mechanical differences between the two alternatives.

When walmart places a bad price they pay the consequences and bear the cost, when they find a good price, they gain the rewards. This gain, benefit(profit) tells walmart that they should continue performing this action.

Government on the other hand does not have this feedback mechanism. There is no immediate way to tell whether they are doing good, or bad. They have no idea when the arbitrary price(tax) they make is too high, or too low for example. This is why I stated earlier that a government can only correctly calculate when it's done by accident. As they are oblivious to consumer response and feedback. They have no mechanism to measure citizen's satisfaction rating, where walmart on the other hand does.

Scineram:
what good would that be?

What good would what be?

Scineram:
Then don't compell society to anarchocapitalism!

This is the most confused thing I have read in a while.

Lets say Hypothetically speaking we are neighbors. Lets assume for obvious reasons that I refuse to submit into your servitude as a personal slave. Am I somehow compelling you to sow and harvest your own crops? Am I compelling you, against your will to do your own work? Simply because I refuse to sow and harvest your crops for you. How on earth am I compelling you simply because I refuse to be your slave?

You must be deeply confused. Whos gun is placed at whos head. Think about it....

Scineram:
There are no exact anwers. But you do ignore all the nonmarket feedback mechanisms for producers?

Like?

Scineram:
Nirvana fallacy, that is.

Explain yourself.

Scineram:
There are no exact anwers.

So you are effectively denying the functionality of the price mechanism? You don't think it serves a purpose and that Austrian's are just speaking jibberish w hen they mention pricing and calculation?

How many scarce resources should be allocated (Whats in supply)
Whom should recieve the product of these resources? (Demand, whos willign to pay the most based on their ordinal subjective preferences)
- Please clarify. are you saying that prices cannot shed light into these two factors(Supply/demand)?
Production effeciency and innovation?
- So you don't think competition spurs efficiency and innovation?

Re: Some Thoughts.

Aristippus — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:26:57 GMT

scineram - I direct you to Rothbard's Man, Economy, State. Once you've read the first 4 chapters you'll realise the errors you are committing here.

Re: Some Thoughts.

scineram — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 23:18:15 GMT

filc:

What exactly between pointing out the differences between the formation of prices on a market, vs the arbitrary assignment of prices by government is meaningless?

Businesses and enterpreneurs assign prices arbitrarily.

So you agree then that the state has no other means of figuring out how best to serve it's customers, other then blatant guesswork? I'd agree with you, this is the point I am making. Despite this fact you still advocate this system over the price mechanism provided on a market.

The market mechanism is guesswork.

A) Who are you to judge, on behalf of society, what actions police enforcement should perform for the benefit of "society". Who are you to say that consumer satisfaction is more important than anything else? Why are you the single arbiter of this opinion? When you make such a bold claim your attempting to play god, on behalf of society. Your in effect projecting your subjective valuation on the masses. Your statement necessarily implies that consumer satisfaction is more important than general freedom.

B) If homocide rates, and preventing them, are more important than consumer satisfaction. Why don't we just lock everyone up in a camp? Ball and chain them to their beds? Feed them when they need it. Guarantee 0 homicide rates. Who cares what the citizen thinks about it right? So long as homicide rates are low. If homocide rates are your key goal, there are more effective ways of accomplish this.

What good would that be?

These are the directions you take when you move away from individual satisfaction, to matching the satisfaction of a single individual, such as yourself. Then compelling society to adher to your personal beliefs on the matter.

Then don't compell society to anarchocapitalism!

The market works great, except.....

So as LS stated. Your a free market capitalst, except when it involves an area that you are personally apprehensive about.

Your unprincipled inconsistency is why your argument fails.

It would if I gave a shit about principles. I am with Mises, standing for reality and practice.

How many scarce resources should be allocated to ensure proper defense(According to you, if preventing homicide is the highest ideal, we should be allocating a vast percentage more of our productive output into creating a police state. Ensuring such a degree of no homicide necessarily will mean sacrificing various freedoms)(What supply should be created?)

Which areas should receive these resources? Which areas should recieve the least?(Where is the demand at?)

How much should we tax to pay for this? (Where's the price mechanism?)

Whats the most effecient way of producing defense(Where is the competition, and entrepreneurial innovative discovery?)

There are no exact anwers. But you do ignore all the nonmarket feedback mechanisms for producers. Nirvana fallacy, that is.

Re: Some Thoughts.

filc — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:55:56 GMT

Scineram:
You look at their perfomance, the social enviroment, the crime statistics, and make an educated guess.

As I stated above, these are second hand metrics and do not address consumer satisfaction. Whether or not there were more or less homocides last month does not say specifically how satisfied the citizen's are with the police agency's performance. Your conflating crime statistics with consumer satisfaction.

So how do you know what the naturally occurring rate of protection would be at?

Scineram:
The term is meaningless.

What exactly between pointing out the differences between the formation of prices on a market, vs the arbitrary assignment of prices by government is meaningless?

Scineram:
You listen to them, look at the crime levels, hear out the police personnel themselves.

This was answered in my previous post, and repeated above. Looking at your crime levels and talking to your police personell are second hand statistics. Statistics that consumers may not even be interested in. Like, how many traffic sitations did we enforce this month, as opposed to something more important in the consumers eyes. Do not conflate arbitrary statistics with metrics of consumer satisfaction.

Your saying that somehow we can do this, even though every citizen by default is a subscribing customer. But how does the state know when it does good or bad, there is never an increase or decrease in subscribers.

Scineram:
No one knows that. You guess.

So you agree then that the state has no other means of figuring out how best to serve it's customers, other then blatant guesswork? I'd agree with you, this is the point I am making. Despite this fact you still advocate this system over the price mechanism provided on a market.

On the other hand private parties have direct outputs with which to measure by, to determine the effectiveness of various actions taken.

Scineram:
There are more important things than consumer satisfaction. Like homicide rates.

A) Who are you to judge, on behalf of society, what actions police enforcement should perform for the benefit of "society". Who are you to say that protection against homocide is more important than anything else? Why are you the single arbiter of this opinion? When you make such a bold claim your attempting to play god, on behalf of society. Your in effect projecting your subjective valuation on the masses. Your statement necessarily implies that protection of homocide is more important than general freedom.

B) If homocide rates, and preventing them, are more important than consumer satisfaction. Why don't we just lock everyone up in a camp? Ball and chain them to their beds? Feed them when they need it. Guarantee 0 homicide rates. Who cares what the citizen thinks about it right? So long as homicide rates are low. If homocide rates are your key goal, there are more effective ways of accomplish this.

These are the directions you take when you move away from individual satisfaction, to matching the satisfaction of a single individual, such as yourself. Then compelling society to adher to your personal beliefs on the matter.

This fallacy fallacy ignores praxeology all together and pretends that your ideals are of greater value then others. To place an arbitrary statistic above consumer satisfaction, like placing homocide rates above consumer satisfaction, is to direct the production of defense in a direction that does not best meet the desires of individuals. If its not our goal to create the highest level of satisfaction for individuals, why bother to have an economy at all? There are a number of abusive ways to ensure no homocide. You sound as if you'd endorse that.

C) Homocide rates can simply fluctuate up and down due to external factors. That doesn't necessarily mean that police agencies are performing any better or worse. The best judge of an agency's performance is to have it judged not by one single bias arbiter(the state) but by thousands of individual judges(consumers). Each consumer making their own assessment and endorsing agency's which in their minds perform the best.

Scineram:
In the production of defence it doesn't.

The market works great, except.....

So as LS stated. Your a free market capitalst, except when it involves an area that you are personally apprehensive about.

Your unprincipled inconsistency is why your argument fails. You advocate isolated socialism.

So we still have several un-answered questions. You agreed that the state performs simple guesswork on its performance levels. I maintain my questions as un-answered.

How many scarce resources should be allocated to ensure proper defense(According to you, if preventing homicide is the highest ideal, we should be allocating a vast percentage more of our productive output into creating a police state. Ensuring such a degree of no homicide necessarily will mean sacrificing various freedoms)(What supply should be created?)
Which areas should receive these resources? Which areas should recieve the least?(Where is the demand at?)
How much should we tax to pay for this? (Where's the price mechanism?)
Whats the most effecient way of producing defense(Where is the competition, and entrepreneurial innovative discovery?)

Re: Some Thoughts.

scineram — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 20:23:19 GMT

filc:

How do you tell what the demand for police personnel is?

You look at their perfomance, the social enviroment, the crime statistics, and make an educated guess.

And since your using taxes to pay for this, you already have all citizen's as a consumer by default.

Taxation is costly, including elections, economic condition.

So how do you know what the naturally occurring rate of protection would be at?

The term is meaningless.

IE How much SHOULD be spent on police protection? How many scarce resources SHOULD we spare were it not coercively distributed? How can you tell when you are spending too much in police protection in some area's, and not enough in others, as judged by the demand of citizen's.

You listen to them, look at the crime levels, hear out the police personnel themselves.

Your saying that somehow we can do this, even though every citizen by default is a subscribing customer. But how does the state know when it does good or bad, there is never an increase or decrease in subscribers.

No one knows that. You guess.

It measure's it's success not based on consumer satisfaction, but using non-relevant metrics like how many homocide's happened this month as compared to last. Such metric's are non-sequiturs of consumer satisfaction. They indirectly measure performance. Services to individuals are measured in metrics of satisfaction, other metric's outside of that are just indirect metrics used to help bolster consumer satisfaction.

There are more important things than consumer satisfaction. Like homicide rates.

If you had we could abandon the market all together, and provide all goods as we provide police protection. As LS stated there is no third option. Either you conceded that the market works, or you do not.

In the production of defence it doesn't.

Re: Some Thoughts.

filc — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:12:00 GMT

Thanks Esuric, heh. Stated better then myself.