QuoteYou would think this forum was conducive to further educating the economic conservative base. That comes with challenging our beliefs sometimes to ensure that we stay sharp. Obviously someone doesn't believe that, but he also is a neoconservative so...

Exactly. How do you expect to understand something like economics unless you try to understand all points of view.

I'm not a libertarian myself ( At this point in time) , but I have a lot of respect for people like Sowell, Friedman and Paul.

Quote from: For Liberty on October 30, 2012, 07:54:51 PM
TAXED dont give yourself too much credit, its impossible for you to belittle me. Get over yourself and whenever you want to challenge me on an issue bring it on.  Otherwise shut your big government face up while grown adults speak.

If you aren't going to back up your assertion that I'm big government, then I'd appreciate it if you'd retract it.

Quote from: taxed on October 30, 2012, 07:56:16 PM
If you aren't going to back up your assertion that I'm big government, then I'd appreciate it if you'd retract it.

Negative, what you can do is retract the assertion of me being an economic liberal. Second option is that you can kick me off the site since you realize that you screwed up and need to save face. Respect demands respect buddy.

Quote from: For Liberty on October 30, 2012, 08:02:02 PM
Negative, what you can do is retract the assertion of me being an economic liberal. Second option is that you can kick me off the site since you realize that you screwed up and need to save face. Respect demands respect buddy.

You can't defend the free markets in a discussion with a Keynesian.  That is sad, and embarrassing if I was you.

Quote from: taxed on October 30, 2012, 08:06:14 PM
You can't defend the free markets in a discussion with a Keynesian.  That is sad, and embarrassing if I was you.

Like I thought.

Thanks for the insight redlom.

Quote from: For Liberty on October 30, 2012, 08:10:16 PM
Like I thought.

Thanks for the insight redlom.

hahahahahaha  I can't believe I'm talking with a kid who doesn't even know about free markets and the New Deal.  It's like a 3rd grader just threw down his backpack and wants to fight me.

Here, maybe this video can help you with some basic concepts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

QuoteLike I thought.

Thanks for the insight redlom.

Not a problem Liberty, it's good to have a libertarian on the forum.

Quotehahahahahaha  I can't believe I'm talking with a kid who doesn't even know about free markets and the New Deal.  It's like a 3rd grader just threw down his backpack and wants to fight me.

You're so hardass taxed. You call him a kid and 3rd grader.

Of course you havn't related anything back to the original question of the thread.

Quote from: redlom xof on October 30, 2012, 08:17:08 PM
Not a problem Liberty, it's good to have a libertarian on the forum.

You're so hardass taxed. You call him a kid and 3rd grader.

Of course you havn't related anything back to the original question of the thread.

hahahaha  now THAT'S funny.....

Quote from: For Liberty on October 30, 2012, 06:24:20 PM
Gents,

I got into a friendly debate with my well-educated uncle on economics. Im a free market purist and my uncle is a Keynesian enthusiast. Pretty much, I believe I lost a debate regarding the bailout. I believe and attempted to explain that the bailout ultimately hinders the economy in the long run and that the free market would work itself out. Well, my uncle was very capable of countering with the great depression and the whole new deal fiasco as well as explaining that without government intervention during crises, a depression of that magnitude can't bounce back. He advocated deficit spending saying that it increases GDP and all this other stuff. I say I lost because I was unable to convince him that Free market purism was better than government intervention. Any tips?

His argument is that akin to pissing on a forest fire and claiming his pissing was the cause of inevitable demise.
The mkt corrected itself in spite of the damage done by the left.

To argue for free mkt principle, one needs to understand it in context to history.
It's for this reason I give you shit for claiming Libertarian status, until you understand the damage Libertarianism has on society, I will continue to give you crap.

QuoteIt's for this reason I give you shit for claiming Libertarian status, until you understand the damage Libertarianism has on society, I will continue to give you crap.

Solar explains this.

I thought you would have considered yourself at least an economic libertarian ?

FL, I am on my phone and trying to do about four things right now, and perhaps the Sewell video covered it, but the great depression did not just effect the US, it hit every industrialised nation.  Not only had the recovery started before the New Deal, but in places like Germany, where they relied more on the market to correct the problem, they saw recovery far and away better and faster than our own.  I have no links, so that was more of a tip where to look for an answer than actually giving you the answer, but hey, I am in teacher mode right now. 

Quote from: redlom xof on October 31, 2012, 07:33:09 AM
Solar explains this.

I thought you would have considered yourself at least an economic libertarian ?

I am, but with a pragmatic understanding in context to history.
One cannot truly understand the world around them, without understanding the history.

Quote from: For Liberty on October 30, 2012, 06:24:20 PM
Gents,

I got into a friendly debate with my well-educated uncle on economics. Im a free market purist and my uncle is a Keynesian enthusiast. Pretty much, I believe I lost a debate regarding the bailout. I believe and attempted to explain that the bailout ultimately hinders the economy in the long run and that the free market would work itself out. Well, my uncle was very capable of countering with the great depression and the whole new deal fiasco as well as explaining that without government intervention during crises, a depression of that magnitude can't bounce back. He advocated deficit spending saying that it increases GDP and all this other stuff. I say I lost because I was unable to convince him that Free market purism was better than government intervention. Any tips?

Well he is wrong.

First off, the claim that without government intervention, the economy wont bounce back, has been proven wrong during recession of 1920.

The government did nothing and the economy came roaring back in little more than a year.

Secondly, FDR's actions were partly focused on price stability, just as Hoover's had been. So credit and money was injected into the economy to prop prices up. And price controls were implemented to keep prices from falling. The result was a market that could not clear. In a recession, businesses contract, jobs are lost and prices fall. As economic activity decreases, so does the velocity of money, and then prices follow.

But if prices are prevented from decreasing and finding a "bottom," the "adjustment" or correction process that we call recessions, is stretched out over many years, as the market is pulling one way, and the state is pulling another.

This hobbled any recovery.

Secondly, the New Deal created many new government agencies and promises, and with them, taxes. Taxation diminishes private capital and turns it over to the state. This removes the incentive to invest and produce.

The New Deal made massive new promises that would require massive new taxes. This creates uncertainty in the minds of investors and producers regarding future tax rates, so they invest less. Robert Higgs has called this "regime uncertainty."

The New Deal came and went without any positive economic consequences.

In 1936, the FED started contracting the money supply, in order to halt the inflationary pressures their previous actions had created. This plunged the economy back into a recession.

Let us not forget that the reason the economy was in a recession in the first place is that dollar was debased and artificial credit was created, in order to make the pound appear stronger against the dollar, so the level of pound debasement during WWI was hidden and Britain could go back on the gold standard at their pre-war par level. Injecting credit and money to decrease the value of the dollar against the pound had the unintended consequences of igniting a credit fueled bubble, complete with a bubble in housing and in the stock market, not too much different from the one Greenspan gave us.

So the booming 20s were created by monetary policy intervention, just as the crash was exacerbated by it.

Finally, it wasn't until after WWII, when the war time planning controls (our version of socialism) were lifted and the economy returned to a market based economy, that we had positive economic growth.

Up until then, even during WWII, economic growth was depressed. The official statistics tell a different story, regarding GDP growth turning positive during WWII, but we have to remember that these GDP stats, during the war, are fictions. Prices under a socialist economy are mere labels handed down from above. They are not as information rich as market prices.

Therefore, GDP stats calculated in a "command economy" are not accurate.

Now to leave history and step into current events, the argument that the bailout of the banks was good for the economy is simply untenable.

For one, you cant have capitalism without bankruptcy and failure. A failed enterprise sheds it capital and resources to production processes that are more efficient. When that process is halted, it maintains a production structure and a distribution of capital that is at odds with consumer preferences. It is inefficient.

Sure the bailouts preserved a few jobs, but the cost is all those jobs that would have been created with these resources in others hands.

And the moral hazard of bailing out big firms who take big risks is partly the problem in the first place. This "moral hazard" has just been strengthened! The big banks now have incentive to take even bigger risks.

Make no mistake, the bailouts had nothing to do with saving the economy, and everything to do with saving special and powerful interests.

Quote from: Solar on October 31, 2012, 06:58:58 AM

It's for this reason I give you shit for claiming Libertarian status, until you understand the damage Libertarianism has on society, I will continue to give you crap.

I'd like to hear more about that!

Quote from: TowardLiberty on October 31, 2012, 09:27:18 AM
I'd like to hear more about that!

Taking conservatism, or libertarianism if you will to its logical conclusion leads to anarchy, as we've discussed in the past. Anarchy would lead to total disaster in the short term, but would necessarily lead to people grouping together for defense, and the support of such activities as agriculture and manufacture over the long haul.

The problem with libertarianism, as you see it, is that a man can be completely self-sufficient, and no social structure of agreement with others is necessary.

In its extreme form, libertarianism is basically saying that "you can't tell me what to do." That won't, and never has worked. You end up with You end up with a crude form of society built on an eye for an eye mentality that ends up in clan warfare. Although that is a form of government, it's not a preferable one, as it leads to might makes right. We formed our government, from a bottom up prospective so that this wouldn't happen, and so that even the weak would have their natural rights protected. Without a strong local government, the big guy next door could decide he liked the house I built, and take it on a whim. I, as the weaker present couldn't do a thing about it.

I agree that the central government is too strong, and overbearing. I don't agree that we can all be completely independent, and do as we wish. Some delegation to others of our individual autonomy must take place to ensure that peace and property is maintained. Might makes right would work well for a very limited part of the population, and we would end up being ruled, and have no autonomy at all. Yes, we would end up as slave because of an irrational demand that everyone mind their own business.

Those are my problems with libertarianism as you see it.

That said, every one of those political tests you can take on line that I've taken call me a libertarian.