Rustici on Smoot Hawley

The more he speaks the stupider he sounds.

And, after muirpidity #1, whooda thunk it possible?

You're funny.

Go and ask 10 people you know what they think about free markets. Then come back here and tell us what they said. I'll be willing to wager that most of them aren't orthodox freemarketers, or even think very highly of market economy. In fact, it's completely ridiculous to argue that free markets, or libertarian social policies, are in anyway accepted by the mainstream opinion.

It's equally ridiculous to say that free markets and rent seeking go hand in hand. Actually, this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard you say. And boy, that's quite the achievement. Rich people propagate _free markets_, because they want to _rent seek_? Really? REALLY?

"Rich people propagate _free markets_, because they want to _rent seek_? Really? REALLY"

Wow... I guess you missed the last 2-3 years or actually 20 or 30 years during which the philosophy of the Cato Institute was promoted to both break down regulations while at the same time allowing more and more power set up rules that allow ever more and more rent seeking. For christ sake you monkey they just stole trillions of dollars from the economy and then got the government to pay them several trillion more. You're a damn fool.

Did you ever here of Jude Wanniski and the 2 Santa's Theory? If not you might want to read up on it. The libertarian philosophy is NOT believed by the rich. It's only a tool they use... a drug to seduce gullible people like you into supporting what seems like a beneficial policy (Duuhhh yeah sure I want to pay less taxes) while they rip you off in so many ways with out you even understanding how... and they even get you to defend them... Like some ork defending Mordor.

So, I take it that you don't buy Reagan's quote, "All systems are capitalist. The only difference is in who controls the capital."

The libertarian philosophy is NOT believed by the rich. It's only a tool they use...

So you are not aware that the Democrat party has more wealthy people that the Republican party. And that those same wealthy Dems actually promote more socialistic policies than free market policies.

Are you suggesting that Democrats definitionally cannot be classified as wealthy?

"The libertarian philosophy is NOT believed by the rich. "

Of course it isn't, you idiot. They like stupid tools like yourself to support government so they can get rich off of scams like global warming. Your boy Algore is example #1, you bootlicker.

I'm sorry but I doubt I can even stomach this... likely yet another perverse backwards attempt to defend market infallibility. I'm finding these types of discussions more valuable as insights into human psychology than anything about economics.

Animal Spirits...Animal Spirits...Animal Spirits...Animal Spirits...Animal Spirits!!!

I differ with some Libertarian orthodox but still consider myself a libertarian, so I come here to debate the fine points of market organization with people who broadly agree but differ on details. The devil is in the details, so I get my share of damnation here, but I'm here to share and to learn, so I can live with it. I even try to agree with you on the rare occasions when I can.

But I don't get you at all. I'd never suggest that you leave, but I have no idea why you're here. You don't respect Hayek. You don't respect the bloggers. You have no interest in the paradigm. You won't change any minds, and you're not about to change yours.

I think the libertarian philosophy has much more sway in economic public policy then it should and unfortunately not enough in social policy. I am here to refine my arguments against it and to see if my positions stand their challenges. When some one tries to blame the Depression on Smoot Hawley I know that's an butt not even worth raising my foot to kick.

I think some of the wealthiest people in the world know that free market philosophy needs to keep propped up as it is not because it works but because its their ticket to rent seeking riches.

The free market philosophy is like religion. An opiate for the masses. One more way along with sports and religion to keep their hold on power and wealth while the commoners remain subdued in their belief of something greater.

When some one tries to blame the Depression on Smoot Hawley I know that's an butt not even worth raising my foot to kick.

I divide my forum time (too much of it) largely between this site and skepticforum.com. At skepticforum, the most popular subject is religion, and the professional atheists there kick history's dumbest butts with mind-numbing regularity. Surely, you can spare a few minutes for the libertarian morons here.

Rustici asserts, for example, that the credit contraction in 30s originated largely in economic regions dominated by foreign trade before spreading more systemically. This assertion is empirical, not ideological. Do you dispute it or not?

I think some of the wealthiest people in the world know that free market philosophy needs to keep propped up as it is not because it works but because its their ticket to rent seeking riches.

You have that reversed. Seeking riches by seeking rents is precisely the opposite of free market organization. In a freer market system, no central bank or other organ of a central authority may bail out creditors. No central authority may sell entitlement to tax revenue. No central authority may hand out broad monopolies over productive organization, like software and business process patents. No central authority may rescue creditors by spreading responsibility for the debts owed them or binding individual factors of production to suboptimal organizations. In a freer system, dissolving unprofitable, bankrupt organizations is easier, not more difficult.

Libertarianism is not proprietarianism (commonly called "Capitalism"). You think it is, because established proprietors and their lackeys, calling themselves "libertarians", often dominate the debate, but proprietarianism is just another statist ideology protecting established authorities at the expense of individual liberty to organize and reorganize resources.

The free market philosophy is like religion. An opiate for the masses.

Can you be more specific here? What tenet of "free market philosophy", precisely, is an opiate for the masses, and if the masses like this opiate so much, why can't a libertarian be elected dog catcher? Why isn't Ron Paul the POTUS for example?

Vague descriptions like "opiate of the masses" are evasive and are persuasive only when preaching to a choir. You aren't preaching to your choir here. You must do better.

If free market philosophy is such a simple religion, why do the faithful attack me for advocating market freeing reforms like a progressive consumption tax, title expiration and free banking?

Dogg no one is gonna read this shit.?


LMAO!!

What other people read is not my problem.

"The free market philosophy is like religion. An opiate for the masses."

This does raise an interesting question. Does the average productive person care about free markets as in freedom from political interference? or mostly just about freedom from political exploitation? I would say its mostly the latter. The understanding of the former is logical in that the two are interconnected, but still, I wonder if most wouldn't mind the interference if it weren't for the exploitation.

I am here to refine my arguments against it and to see if my positions stand their challenges.

Muir, my partner, having known you for the last several years, I know the honesty oozing out of that statement. We can help our cause by stating 5 arguments that you have refined through "rigorous debate
with the thickheaded libertarians on this blog, you can do so by stating your original arguments and how it has evolved over the period of time you have been tireless repeating them here.

Come on now, hit it out of the park. Can't wait.

Love you, mmmmwwwwaaaahhhhh

I think some of the wealthiest people in the world know that free market philosophy needs to keep propped up as it is not because it works but because its their ticket to rent seeking riches.

Muir, That's a fantastic issue that you raise. Yes, libertarians have so many wealthy people on their side - which is reflected in the money that libertarian party raises compared to democrats and republicans. However, my question is this, libertarians may have the support of wealthy people, but how many billionaires on their side? Answer is they have next to nothing, they are all on their side, we have got it all - the giant hearted gazillionaires like Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Ted Turner, George Soros, Al Gore, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffet, Penny Pritzker, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, George Lucas, David Geffen, Ken Griffin, Oprah Winfrey, etc. These are moral robots working tirelessly for the benefit of others. How many such world improvers does the Liberterians have? None. We win, they lose. End of story.

Love you, Mmmmwwwaaahhhhh

That's how you earn denigration.

Libertarians propose to end rent seeking by ending the availability of such rents.

The wealthiest people use their money to buy influence from Democrats and Republicans. They certainly have not filled the coffers of the Libertarian party.

How one refine a non-argument?

You can build nicer straw men, but straw men they remain.

The intellectual dishonesty of the left knows no bounds. It is power they seek and they will disclaim it until they have it, then wield it without mercy.

I don't know where you go to fill your head with such dishonest crap.

You keep revealing your essential fascism.

And if you had any reading comprehension, you would have read in the above entry not that Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression, but merely worsened it to some degree.

The Great Depression must be owned by Hoover, Roosevelt, and the FED.

"The Great Depression must be owned by Hoover, Roosevelt, and the FED."


Bullcrap! Harding and Coolidge were the president who set up a lassiez faire economy that resulted in the depression.


The idea of ending rent seeking by neutering the government is silly. A neutered government will quickly be given back powers by the wealthy to do it's bidding. Was not the wealthiest man of his time, J P Morgan largely responsible for creating the Federal Reserve.


The only way to counter corporate power is through a government by the people with the strength to stand up to and balance out corporate power and excesses.

Was not the wealthiest man of his time, J P Morgan largely responsible for creating the Federal Reserve.

Why yes, you got ONE thing right. The bankers promoted the creation of the FED.

Straight out of the laissez faire playbook. /sarcasm

You really don't know what laissez faire means.

It has nothing to do with corporate-government partnership.

Will you ever get honest about that or will you keep perpetuating this grotesque caricature?

The only way to counter corporate power is through a government by the people with the strength to stand up to and balance out corporate power and excesses

How you can say this and accuse libertarians of living in la la land I don't know.

The is no political hierarchy that is by and of the people. It will always fall into the hands of the elites who don't have to worry day to day about providing for themselves and their families, that is, political hierarchies will be government by independently wealthy people who can spend their time and use their connections in the attainment of political power.

This is particularly so in democracies.

"The only way to counter corporate power is through a government by the people with the strength to stand up to and balance out corporate power and excesses."

Listen to the Stalinist. Power to the people! I bet you'd love to go sit at Hugo Chavez's feet and purr like a little kitty cat.

I'm not a communist but you sure as hell seem content to be ruled by mutlinational corporations. I don't see any liberty in that.

But Hoover was a Republican and Roosevelt a democrat. How can they both be responsible for the depression? Don't you know that if one has labeled himself/herself democrat, they are by definition superior people with superior motives?

"One more way along with sports and religion to keep their hold on power"

Always obsessed with power. You and your totalitarian bent. Jackbooted totalitarian, muirpoo!


By the way, you couldn't kick any butt. You're a sniveling old wuss, muircock.

Democracy is bottom up. Libertarianism is the road to concentrated power, wealth and privilege for a few and serfdom for the rest.

"Libertarianism is the road to concentrated power, wealth and privilege for a few and serfdom for the rest."

Thank you for discrediting yourself, muirdung.

Thank you for Muirpidity #47.

Or #47
01/05/10 muirgeo 4 hours ago in reply to Mark

Democracy is bottom up. Libertarianism is the road to concentrated power, wealth and privilege for a few and serfdom for the rest.

What scares me is that he might actually whole heartily believe that line of BS.

Yes sir, I agree that he might.

He is a low enough useful idiot who has no power, and never will, in the socialist hierarchy so it is likely he carries water for the more powerful ones from a belief rather than a rent seeking cynicism.

I'm sorry, but you don't refine your argument by dismissing your opponent's and calling it a day.

I provide more references and data for my arguments then any one here. Likewise most rebuttals to my post are dismissive and without citation to supporting references.

I've been here a long time and I find very little challenge to my positions and very little real world evidence or factual support for the libertarian economic position. The position is simply logically fundamentally flawed that it amazes me so many people cling to it.

I'd say the coming years look dreary as corporations are more and more controlling political policy. This is not a result of too many social programs but of libertarian based supreme court decision over the decades putting more and more control into corporate entities.

We have deregulated, opened up trade, busted unions, protected monopolies, cut taxes on and on over these last 3 decades just as libertarians would prescribe and now our economy and the worlds is in a heap of trouble.

Corporations controlling political policy is antithetical to a free market. What you are describing and complaining about is not free market policy, it is mercantilist and cronyist policy.

Libertarians are also very much opposed to the mercantilism and cronyism you decry. If you believe as you say you should ally with libertarians against the corporatist state rather than blame the only ones opposing it for its creation.

This has been explained to you many, many, many times - why are you still using the wrong terminology? Have you been fooled by the free market rhetoric used by many Republican politicians to hide their very non-free-market actions? (You're not alone, many people confuse the rhetoric for the reality.)

Wtff you saying ESE


haha XD

"Corporations controlling political policy is antithetical to a free market. What you are describing and complaining about is not free market policy, it is mercantilist and cronyist policy."


That's my whole point. What makes you think corporations won't ALWAYS seek rents when government is limited and too week to oppose them.

I can't even imagine how you think a libertarian ruled society would prevent corporations from re-establishing their power into the government.

How does a libertarian propose to prevent corporate rule?

You can make your constitution as strict as you want but eventually it will crumble to the power and influence of concentrated wealth. The libertarian seeks a quixotic adventure and nothing more... it's futile.


The game is between the powerful elites and the masses. Democratic government is the best way to control the power of corporations to the better interest of society.

i really don't think you guys have an answer. I don't think you've thought this through. Libertarianism is an idea that sounds great in oration or written form but in practice... in the real world it is completely untenable.

The point you keep missing is only a powerful government is a valuable source of rents for corporations. Just as a poor man has no value to a thief, a strictly limited government has no value to rent seekers. That’s why the strictly limited constitutional republic the U.S. is supposed to be is such a great idea. Your “government of the people” is a utopian fantasy, and like all utopias it will never happen - it is fundamentally incompatible with human nature. It may sound great to you, but in the real world it is completely untenable.

Los Siento pobre medico!

Your problem, dipshit, is that everyone here is many steps up the scale from your normal associates and disciples.

We know you don't come here with arguments, you come here with socialist theological propaganda and think we don't immediately recognize it for what it is.

You've been here a long time, yep, and you haven't deviated from your chosen stupid shtick once. I have kept a casual running log of some of your more memorable stupidities in a list called "Stupidity of the Duck", would you like to see the complete list again? All stands-alone stupidities needing no context to be seen for what they are, the ramblings of a sub-intellect. Oh what the hell, let's just do the first one for fun, okay?

Muirpidity #1
1. “The rising income discrepancy is what prevents people from obtaining affordable housing.”
Posted by: muirgeo Nov 2007



The others on my list are equally inane and stupid.

No reference, no data, can be used to make that into an intelligent observation or argument. It is just words tacked together in the socialist manner, designed to impress ignorant little kiddies ages 25 and under.

You're a waste of space.

I'm sorry but I doubt I can even stomach this...

You say this, but you lie.

You once made a big production out of telling the whole Cafe that you were leaving and never coming back. Yet, (just as Mesa predicted back then, when you presented your little melodrama) here you are.

You, and DK (with his proclamation that he would never, ever reply to another post by Vidyohs or Methinks) give us insight to the socialist mind, and the veracity of any socialist proclamation.

Sorry, I worded that last sentence incorrectly:

"...but I don't see any harm in disrespecting him intellectually."

Should be I don't see any "point".

Intellectually, DK is lacking. Oh he is well programmed (has a lot of info he can spout) but in reality when it comes to intellectual performance he comes up short time and time again. He has all the evidence and still makes the wrong decision or comes to the wrong conclusion. See his statements on the previous post about liking constitutional democracy which gives us limited government, federalism, and self-governance. While it can give us federalism, it is guaranteed to expand government and eliminate self-governance. He has only to look at USA history to know that.

A decent intellect would never have written the sentence he did. He needs a lot of practice.

See his consistent support of soft-socialism, or out and out socialism. As my more intelligent brother said, "There is no such thing as a socialist intellectual." Any decent intellect has to reject socialism as a failed theology, only an egotistical fool can insist that "he" is the one that can make it work.

I personally think it is more a factor of youth and inexperience in the real nasty arbitrary shitty bureaucratic world run by petty tyrants that surround us everyday.

Right.

While Muir does not seem to add anything to the discussion, Daniel Kuehn actually does. You might not agree with all of his conclusions (and I certainly don't), but I don't see any harm in disrespecting him intellectually.

See a debate he and I are having: http://www.economicthought.net/2009/12/note-on-...

I don't see presenting the same old socialist arguments in drag as terribly intellectual.

I know pseudo-intellectuals believe smearing lipstick on pigs is the height of cerebral chic, but I don't see it as such.

The fact that you have to call them "socialist arguments" tells plenty about your willingness or lack there of to discuss the issues honestly. By your estimate we must be a socialist country as with most of the world.

It's true, Muirdiot.

I'm not the intullekchooal jiant you are.

Bullshit! Daniel is masturbating all over you and you sit there and enjoy it! Get real. He's the poster boy for government bureaucrat arrogance and political doublespeak. All he wants is to split hairs and fantasize about policy. He doesn't add diddly shit to this discussion. Don't bother putting up links to your debates with him as we have no desire to see you two pleasure each other.

Give me a break.

Amazing how intolerant libertarians can be of opposing views.

I'm intolerant of having a gun stuck in my face if I don't agree with your assertion that because fifty percent-plus-one voted for something, that the fifty percent-minus-one who don't want it have to pay for it.

You speak of tolerance, Hypocrite? Who is it here that keeps repeating the Nixon mantra, "If you don't like it, leave"?

You can't tolerate for one second that, because you're too stupid to manage your own life, that we all must have a politician telling us whether it's OK to take a leak in a toilet that uses more than x amount of water, and that they must all be the same, whether in Louisiana, or Nevada.

It's not your views I'm intolerant of, Mrs Grundy. It's the fact that you aren't willing to leave me alone.

This conversation seems to have degenerated into trolls feeding trolls.

I agree with your point, JC. I think Daniel's a fairly bright individual.

My point wasn't about intellectual capacity, however. In fact, it's one of the rare times that I rebutted a Yasafi post where I wasn't pointing out his stupidity.

That is why there is a whole new branch of economics called "Behavioral", and a lot of the research in this area is excellent. See Thaler, Bernartzi. The government regulates the drug market (Pot, heroin etc...), but those regs do not work. Why? Because people's behavioral demands keep the market going, and it is a pretty efficient market considering the regs it faces.

I'm sorry but I doubt I can even stomach this...certainly yet another perverse backwards attempt to promote collective central decision making and redistribution of wealth. I have found these types of comments more valuable as insights into socialist stupidity than anything about economics.

Wonderful point muir. Markets dispersed over 6 billion fallible people are 6 billion times more fallible than, a society centrally planned by infallible commissars like gazillionaires Al Gore, Crook Dodd, Bernie Madoff, George Soros & Oprah Winfrey. These people I just mentioned are just moral robots, they have no human psychology to their actions. They always do what's right for society, we can trust them

Love you, mmmwwwwaaahhhh

Oddly enough, economics and human psychology are inextricably linked.

The stock market is overseen by human beings who watch incessantly for possible profits and losses. Others tend to follow.

Events are often given significance as drivers when actually they are triggers of human reactions.

I also believe that Smoot Hawley was one of the factors in the stock market crash. If your eliminating 10% of a companies profits from trade the that means your stock is over valued and you need to sell.

I also believe that Smoot Hawley was one of the factors in the stock market crash. If your eliminating 10% of a companies profits from trade the that means your stock is over valued and you need to sell.

What amazes me are the Keynesians, whose only answer to why the crash happened is "Animal Spirits," always reject Smoot-Hawley for creating the "Animal Spirit" melancholy in the first place.

Smoot-Hawley has a very disastrous effect on trade and with it confidence in the markets, isn't that Animal Spirits right there? Of course the Keynesian idea is hogwash anyway, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't see any correlation.

This was a topic I briefly explored in a response to one one of Krugman's blog posts.

See: http://www.economicthought.net/2009/12/did-prot...

The Smoot-Hawley was passed after the initial October 1929 stock market crash, but one of the theories is that its passage through Congress throughout 1929 manipulated investors psychologically, at least perhaps decreasing the volume of investment and catalyzing a slow down in the expansion of money. Such a theory would definitely be in line with Austrian business cycle theory, especially due to that last part.

Slightly off-topic, but have you looked into interviewing John Hussman, from Hussman Funds? I think he would be a fascinating person to have on.