No, you don’t.

Allow me to clarify: James Galbraith is a moron, like you.

Markets don’t care, idiot. That’s the point. You’re not that important. Get over it.

Life isn’t ”fair.” This isn’t equal outcome, amateur economist Galbraiths (both of them).

The difference is choice. That’s what you’re supposedly for, right?

Then how come you’re the biggest obstacle to it? And who the hell are you to decide? You have a well established record of mental incompetence and general ignorance, so you’re obviously not the right guy.

If you honestly believe what you spew on this blog and had any integrity whatsoever, you would immediately relinquish everything you have ever gained via your misidentified “talent” (you’re a living counterexample for signaling theory, more later), and you would apologize to everyone here for your ignorance.

You need to rethink your entire wasted life, sniveling jackass.

Participation in sports is voluntary. Care to make participation in government voluntary?

And your argument is that some people are probably currently benefiting in some intangible way off of the crimes of others in the past, so let’s just indiscriminately punish everyone for it now. Apparently the obvious tangible injustices that you must commit in the process do not bother you.

It is called collective justice. Collective justice is, as a matter of fact, not justice at all. It is one of humanities greatest evils. And you, like those in the past who have also advocated for it, really use it simply as a convenient justification for the evil they wish to do to others. In your case, I suspect you wish to persuade your government to confiscate others’ property, and feed your values with the loot–or simply force them to live in some manner consistent with your values.

How about a test of your sincerity. Would you allow someone who starts out with zero net assets–or puts up some amount of wealth that you deem his ill-gotten gains–to choose to be free from all of your coercive schemes? Would you allow that person to pursue a libertarian life–to live by the “rules” of liberty?

This, of course, is nonsensical on so many levels. I have encountered government employees that should consider the term “non-human” an upgrade. But even the best are incapable of stepping outside of humanity and performing a role in the same manner that we can stipulate into existence in sports.

Even with our stipulations, umpires and referees can cheat to achieve some real-life benefits. While there probably is broad agreement over most of what constitutes “unfairness”, what’s left over is hardly insignificant. And there is more than just the question of just conduct – what about unjust conditions?

The reality is this: even in sports they institute leveling strategies like granting poor performers better drafting positions; separating schools into classifications and revenue sharing.

This, of course, is nonsensical on so many levels. I have encountered government employees that should consider the term “non-human” an upgrade. But even the best are incapable of stepping outside of humanity and performing a role in the same manner that we can stipulate into existence in sports.

Even with our stipulations, umpires and referees can cheat to achieve some real-life benefits. While there probably is broad agreement over most of what constitutes “unfairness”, what’s left over is hardly insignificant. And there is more than just the question of just conduct – what about unjust conditions?

The reality is this: even in sports they institute leveling strategies like granting poor performers better drafting positions; separating schools into classifications and revenue sharing.

What do these moral elite who demand that folks like gates give away fortunes to prove their virtue have to say in defense of the fact that they treat their own families better than they do the family down the street? How about how they put food on their own table before the neighbors? Why do they insist upon mowing their own lawns before they’ve first mowed those of the entire block? What a bunch of self centered people in a self centered world!

If one is truly concerned with their own best interest, that means they will look out for the things that they value, personally. Their own happiness, that of their family, the company of those they love, and they do not take a single thing from anyone else, if they know what is good for them. How many business do you know that think “I’ve got this great business model! I’ll make a crappy product, sell it for a high price, and I’ll be rich!” None. If they do that, they won’t make it for very long. Some try this model, and fail. Some temporarily undercut, but that is rare. The truth is, someone who is truly and rationally self interested will not want to damage his own reputation by doing ill to others. Goodwill is more valuable than a few quick kill scams of thefts. returning customers buy more, and tell others to buy more. Those who have been cheated simply call the cops or lawyers. No rational, self-interested individual loving his own happiness would ever seek to bring upon himself the wrath of those he has wronged, nor the torment of public crucifixion that would surely follow.

YES, there are bad businessmen, but they are not RATIONALLY self interested. They are worshipers of their own whims. Rational men do what is best for them, which is very hard to do sometimes.

You can talk all you want about how the money will be destroyed at some point, but if it really were a zero sum game, there would be no ‘stimulus effect’ to speak of.

It’s very much like saying Check Kiting works to grow the economy, as long as nobody cashes any of the checks. (For example, I recall someone citing that the monetization of the GSE debt by the Fed, bought on the open market from other financial institutions is really not affecting anything economically because its proceeds are still sitting in bank reserves and not getting out into the economy via lending. ie, nobody’s caching the check.)

By what mechanism does stealing the wealth of people who “have too much” increase the ability of those who don’t to “move up”?

I would agree with it one hundred percent if it advocated 100% estate taxes and gift taxes, required attendance by all children at uniform schools, etc. Then you would have perfectly “fair” teams and everyone could compete and nobody could impugn the resulting score, however lopsided it might be. That is probably the strongest and most logical caveat that would allow for compeling libertarian thought: “let’s create a very equal playing field, and then it is up to everyone to do what he or she wants and nobody has to feel bad about it or anything.”

As it is now, many libertarians seem to favor their current situation, derived after centuries of governmnet intervention, plunder, systematic laws excluding women, poor people, immigrants, etc. for the longest time, and the argument seems to be, “Ok, no matter what the rules were and what happened in the first half of the game, everything is relatively fair right now, at least as far as I am concerned, so lets keep playing, just no changing the rules starting now, and oh yeah, no government at all except for people with guns to enforce my property rights!”

Why not admit that far more reasonable approach is to admit you are an independent, a socially liberal republican, or a fiscally conservative democrat, acknowledge government must play some role in creating institutions that allow for a market place to even exist, and realize that liberty, human nature, and human decency requires some amount of government action, if only to promote and maintain such a human-invented concept at “property rights” and to prevent anarchy and mob-rule, and then devote oneself to serious policy arguments over the appropriate level of government involvement?