I want to get behind Paul's fiscal views, but I have a hard time supporting any economic theories that completely shun mathematics. Yeah, I understand human behavior can be complex and unpredictable. But seriously, no empirical evidence? No statistics? Just pure deduction? And I'm just supposed to have faith that it would work in a country as large, complex, and diverse as the U.S. when less drastic approaches have worked in the past (and work right now in countries economically and socially similar to the U.S.)? Well, fuck, sign me up! And that's not even taking into account the lack of any real world examples of countries fully embracing Austrian-School theories. The only country I can think of that even approaches Paul's utopia is Switzerland, but they have a central bank and universal healthcare, the commies P)! Somalia? Yeah, let's not go there.
We don't need to travel to Mars to know we can do it. Here's a handful of videos from Milton Friedman, a brilliant economist that won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1976, a person Ron Paul was heavily influenced from. Paul shares almost all, if not entirely all of these views. Saying these views shun mathematics is ridiculous and I'm not even sure how you think it's warranted to say such a thing. Anyways, I'm not actually expecting people to watch these videos. The truth just takes too much time to learn, even if it only takes a half hour. The public doesn't understand capitalism and free-market, so when they think that since our country isn't implementing it, "Hey, it must not work!" What people don't realize is that our government doesn't want it to work. They want to regulate us. They want to make lots and lots of money off of us. They want to control us. All of which go against our interest, against the constitution, a document that was put in place to protect the people. We are giving up our freedoms and liberties to be controlled by money hungry criminals. There is tons and tons of evidence out there that proves that capitalism is the only way for an economy to balance itself and thrive. Both the business and consumer thrive in this system. What we're doing now will guarantee that our dollar hyperinflates very, very soon and our money is nothing more than paper to wipe our ass with. And yes, this might seem radical to most people, but it is the truth of the situation. Turning on a light in a dark room would also seem radical to people who have been living in the dark for a long time. [youtube]RWsx1X8PV_A[/youtube] [youtube]nLsCC0LZxkY[/youtube] [youtube]YmqoCHR14n8[/youtube] [youtube]ca8Z__o52sk[/youtube] [youtube]tdLBzfFGFQU[/youtube] [youtube]9V5OP-VmXgE[/youtube]
Sure, a former sweetheart of mine, usually a dedicated Republican, voted against McCain because she thought his wound on his cheek made him unattractive. True story.
I fail to see how any of this is obama's fault. Bush put us in the war. Nor did he create any of those agencies. Bush's war and tax cuts are the things that fucked us over. Not mention the white collar. When Reagan took office white collar crime exploded. The treasury is employed by people from wall street. This is why we're fucked. Now Obama isn't exactly handling these problems like they need to be handled but its not his fault
It's one of the principal tenants of Austrian School Economics. In their view, econometrics can not adequately predict human behavior, so they instead look towards the logic behind human actions. As for Milton Friedman, I'd argue that the massive deregulation that he and his ilk championed during the Reagan years is largely responsible for the destructive corporatist culture we live in now. It's allowed already large multinational corporations to grow even larger and run roughshod over our environment and wield an unhealthy influence over our political system. But don't confuse me with an anti-capitalist. Basically, I believe in happy mediums, checks and balances. Do I want the central government to be some huge monolithic entity? Of course not. But I also don't want companies becoming "too big to fail." Americans only want to deal in extremes these days, and I'm getting really fucking sick of it. In their world, you're either wholly a capitalist or wholly a socialist. Why can't I just be a rationalist? Why does everything have to be so black or white? Do you really think the leaders of private industry are any less greedy than our public leaders? Please. Corporate blowhards do nothing but whine about taxes, yet all they seem to do is get richer while the poor get poorer. "Trickle down" my ass.
All of this is happening because we aren't in a free market society. If we were a capitalist economy, it wouldn't matter how corrupt or greedy companies got, because there would ALWAYS be more companies taking their place once people lost their confidence in the corrupt ones. There isn't a way for a company to stay in power under capitalism unless the consumer keeps buying from them, which obviously wouldn't happen if the company wasn't in demand. Private is almost always better than public corporations. In the private sector, the companies will compete for your business, lowering prices and raising quality. Right now, for example, the police force can fuck you over and you can do nothing about it. They get paid the same no matter what. They have no incentive to work harder. They have no reason to be more efficient. Compare that to if each city hired their own security to enforce the law. Multiple security contractors would be competing for your business. They know that if they screw you over or treat citizens unlawfully, their entire company is ruined. They will be extremely efficient and both parties of the trading process will be equally satisfied. There is no exploitation in capitalism. There are no monopolies. The richest companies are only the ones that serve the people to the greatest degree. If somebody hands you a bundle of TNT with the fuse already burning, is it not your fault if you just let it burn and blow everything up? Not the best metaphor since Obama is doing worse than just idly sitting by after being dealt a shitty hand. He's adding very substantially to the problem.
People always say this, but it isn't what happens. If companies are allowed to grow infinitely, they will grow infinitely. And there comes a point (which we're seeing right now) where competition becomes nonexistent (or at least impotent), because these massive companies use their vast resources to nip competition in the bud. If they can't squash their competitors in the free market, they'll buy them. If they can't buy them, they'll make their lives a living hell (ask all of those small-time farmers who had their businesses destroyed by Monsanto's frivolous litigation). If there aren't mechanisms in place to keep these companies in check, they won't play fair. This is happening right now, and bear in mind (I cannot stress this enough), it has happened after 30 years of massive governmental deregulation. And more deregulation will somehow make things better? People keep crying about socialism, but the legislation begs to differ. Corporations are paying less in taxes than ever before. They have less rules and regulations to abide by then they did 60 years ago. The exact policies that are supposed to make America a utopia have been given their time to shine. What do we have to show for it? A gap between rich and poor that grows wider by the day. Our environment plundered by big business. Corruption exists no matter how free the market. People in positions of power will do whatever it takes to keep that power. Whether that power comes from government or corporation is irrelevant. Right-wing politicians and academics can spew all of the idealistic hogwash they want to, but reality is a bitch. Privatized public services? We used to have private fire departments (as did most of the western world), and it was a complete fucking catastrophe. How money and competition are supposed to be a positive influence on public services is beyond me. Again, this all comes back to my previous stance: a successful economy needs balance. Government and the private sector need to keep each other in check. Any economic system that allows completely unfettered behavior is destined to be abused. It's human nature. For all of the Austrian School supporter's admittedly fascinating insight, they never seem to have an answer for what to do when the market fails. That's because they literally refuse to even believe that the market can fail! It's idealism, pure and simple.
lol Obama was handed the dynamite and had water to put out the fuse but the republicans said "Nope, using that water would socialism." and they threw a tantrum until the dynamite blew up. @Raymond Luxury-Yacht- Couldn't have said it better myself
I don't know how to respond to that. You keep talking about how things are happening now, trying to prove that capitalism wouldn't keep companies in check, when we're not even a capitalist nation. How is that any evidence against capitalism? The reason we are so fucked up is because we abide by Keynesian economics, which is laughable to say the least. You can't reasonably say anything that we're doing today is like what capitalism would be like. Keynesian economics will be the single and only reason our economy ultimately implodes upon itself. It's not an "if", but a "when" if we keep the status quo. The government heavily interferes with the business world and doesn't allow the free market to work whatsoever. The government also is interfering with our lives, taking away most of our liberty as of today. Will things change? Only if the people finally decide they want it. If we feel it's ok to be treated like dogs while living in a horribly corrupt and flawed government, I won't feel sorry for us when we have no more rights at all. This is all our fault. We've let our government get too big. We can't overthrow it. We can't have any significant input on changing it. The only way we can somehow get out of this mess is if we luckily have a libertarian in the mainstream that can get all the power to get us back to what government is supposed to be. And we finally do have a candidate like that in the mainstream. But many people are still overlooking him and will almost surely regret the decision when hyperinflation turns us into the next Germany and Zimbabwe. I can't wait till McDonald's has a 100 trillion dollar menu.
One of the biggest problems about Obama is that he's too soft. That debt deal was a joke. However on the other side, the Republicans are stubborn. I think people need to start realising that massive spending cuts won't be that effective. Thinking about it, it's not just Obama - it's about the Republican party as well. That's why things aren't being done much about the economy. For everything else however... *cough cough* http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/ I think we also have to blame ourselves who thought Obama would change the economy so fast. Back in 2008, we wanted something big. Hope. And we had such high expectations for Obama as if he was the best person in the world. I honestly don't think the economy would've been any better with John Mccain or anyone else really. George W. Bush has caused so much damage to the point America will take ages to recover... and they may not even recover at all.
@travz21: You have to regulate privately owned businesses, Their taking jobs out of country where wages and taxes are lower. You have tell them they have to create a certain amount of jobs in the US (depending on say, income) if they want to operate here. That way you can tax them as they need to be taxed. This free market thing is bullshit, because once a business gets big enough they just operate however they want. They're above the law. That's one of this countries biggest issues. We're no longer a democracy but a plutocracy (business run government). They're twisting the laws so they can make more profit and pay less taxes
It's disheartening to see the government has brainwashed so many people into thinking any of that is true. The government is the "company" that is going unchecked. That is above the law. That is disregarding the constitution. That is taking rights from the people. That is manipulating the system to gain more money, to even devalue our money at an unrecoverable rate. I really don't know what else I can say to get people to see what is really happening. Most of it is common logic once you think about it the right way, instead of this clouded, government-induced mentality of how the nation works.
well its up to the citizens to keep the government on the up and up. We do have the power to overthrow anybody not doing their job or anybody stealing from us
we do have the power, there's 200 million of us, I think if things got out of control, even a small portion of that would be able to take on the government
When we start rioting, then our nation will become a police state. We'll meet tons and tons of resistance. They'll shut down the boarders so people can't flee. Then it's basically game over for us. Unless we go all out war on our own government and expect the military to rebel with us, our government has too much power now to be overthrown. Also, here's a great article proving the power that a free market would have. http://abcnews.go.com/US/massachusetts-woman-dead-public-pool-days/story?id=13968518 Instead of a public pool that is paid for by taxes and that has no incentive to be efficient and hard working, how about we let the free market allow the consumer to decide which companies they want building and running their recreational areas. This blunder would never happen in a free market society because the company would have incentive to keep up quality and efficiency, or else they'll lose money or possibly lose all consumer demand. If a public pool works harder, they get exactly the same amount of money as doing nothing. Private sectors HAVE to work harder to keep up with other companies that are competing for the consumer's business. Unfortunately, when so many things are government operated and are funded by our tax money no matter how well they do their job, we lose quality and safety because there is nothing keeping them in check. In a free market, the consumer dictates prices and quality. In a free market, this woman wouldn't have been floating dead in a pool for 2 days.
Economically, me and Travz are on the same page here. I don't see anyone coming close to debunking his, or rather well known capitalist truths. In fact it boggles me that people can keep making up so many ways to argue against capitalism.
Who gets brainwashed into taking a relatively moderate and reasonable stance? You're the one being all dogmatic like and repeating pretty much the same black and white rhetoric over and over and over in the face of every single argument against it. We get it, capitalism is perfect, the 80s never happened, blah blah blah.