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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 21:54:27

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('prajeshbhat', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')k, this is an outright lie. Mises left because of threats to his life by the nazi government due to his uncompromising pro-liberty stance. Subsequently they ransacked his apartment.


Wow. If he was so uncompromising, why did he run away like a coward. Fleeing to a safe country when somebody breaks into your apartment doesn't sound very uncompromising to me. He should have stayed there and fought for his beloved free-market principals.

It may be worthwhile to recall why the nazis came into power the first place. That was the retaliation from the public after these austerity freaks subjected them to starvation. This is what the austerity ideologues don't get. By imposing austerity they are creating conditions for a communist revolution, the very thing they fear the most. They just assume that people will applaud them for the virtues of self-deprivation that they are promoting.
"Communist revolution" meaning the German Revolution of 1918? In terms of being a communist revolution, it failed to install a Marxist regime but did lead to the Weimar Republic in 1919, which the Nazis were able to subvert, leading to the Enabling Acts of 1933. When the Nazi Party formed in 1920, their little antisemitic coalition kept a few vaguely Socialist talking points in the "25 point" Nazi platform. By 1921 they formed the SA to have street battles with Socialists, and in 1923 they got the Blood Flag that commemorated a lethal street fight with the police. This Beer Hall Putsch of Nov 1923 led to "jail" for Hitler through 1924 when Mein Kampf was written under house arrest. Mein Kampf (1929) promised the violent extermination Socialism, and Hitler rode that into power.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby americandream » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 22:03:16

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('prajeshbhat', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')k, this is an outright lie. Mises left because of threats to his life by the nazi government due to his uncompromising pro-liberty stance. Subsequently they ransacked his apartment.


Wow. If he was so uncompromising, why did he run away like a coward. Fleeing to a safe country when somebody breaks into your apartment doesn't sound very uncompromising to me. He should have stayed there and fought for his beloved free-market principals.

It may be worthwhile to recall why the nazis came into power the first place. That was the retaliation from the public after these austerity freaks subjected them to starvation. This is what the austerity ideologues don't get. By imposing austerity they are creating conditions for a communist revolution, the very thing they fear the most. They just assume that people will applaud them for the virtues of self-deprivation that they are promoting.


Hahaha!! "creating conditions for a communist revolution". Whats the bet that were you to suddenly find yourself filthy rich, you would be doing exactly the same things. The quest for profit is an unrelenting battle over who gets the most from capital invested. That's as old as capitalism itself and in fact as old as the first forays into private title and the era of wealth accumulation. The Nazis had nothing to do with German austerity although they played on the disaffection that gave rise to. Nazism is the militant arm of capitalism just as slavery was feudalism's iron fist. The both exist as backstops in the event of any real challenge to the centres of private wealth and in fact come to the fore where there is a real risk of the working clas or the peasantry resorting to taking events into their own hands. They both polarise and distract but the underlying accumulation of surplus conmtiunes unhindered. It's hardly any surprise that Hitler was seen as something of a saviour by the then Western world's beleagured corporate classes.

The tightening of the austerity levers come in the face of record corporate profits!! If there is any disquiet at the moment, it is largely manufactured as the working class are set up for more sacrifice.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby mattduke » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 22:31:17

The national socialists were elected after the Weimar hyperinflation destroyed the society. And to set the record straight, a balanced budget is not austerity. The 2012 budget would be balanced if the government could restrict itself to 2004 level expenditures.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 22:36:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is."

What's funny the inability of some to understand this statement. His point, which is trivially obvious, is that there is no special human economic activity.

Whatever your political leanings, this idea of "no special human economic activity" is clearly false, unless you want to say that ANY long term economic progress or ANY long perm productivity makes NO difference.

Consider:

1). Example 1: Society decides that at all costs, everyone must be employed, no matter what. So they spend their time digging Keynes' bottles out of holes, or imitating classic military punishment, spend their time digging one hole and filling it with dirt from another, and repeat that process all day, every "work" day of the year.

2). Example 2: People are free to work together to form privately run groups of people and attempt to make things, trade things, sell the things they make, etc. in the hopes of making an honest profit. (Hint - these groups could be called "companies".)

....

Now, a little thought experiment:

a). Under which system, would society progress very far (if at all) technologically beyond cave man level?

b). Under which system, would all members of society be less likely to starve as soon as foraging produced too little food?

c). Under which system do you suppose more wealth per capita, improvements in lifespan, etc. would be created over time?

d). Given the obvious answers to a, b, and c -- which system would you prefer your children to be allowed to live in?

....

It's really not that complicated -- the vast difference should be blindingly obvious to anyone willing to be intellectually honest about it.

As much as the left hates Ayn Rand, that is the key point she kept making (In "Atlas Shrugged" for example, -- it is man's MIND, and the freedom to utilize it to make progress that makes all the difference, as far as long term economic well being of a society.

(Of course, that flies in the face of a huge government controlling every aspect of our lives it possibly can, in the name of illusions like "progress" and "fairness".)
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 22:45:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'T')he national socialists were elected after the Weimar hyperinflation destroyed the society. And to set the record straight, a balanced budget is not austerity. The 2012 budget would be balanced if the government could restrict itself to 2004 level expenditures.

The Nazis never got more than something like 34% of the vote in any free election, and only got 44% after Hitler's appointment to Chancellor. It is a common error to say that Hitler was "elected" Chancellor, but he was appointed by Hindenberg. But you knew that.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby dissident » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 23:23:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'R')ecessions and depressions are spasms of existing economic structure and not intrinsic physical states of society.

Recessions and depression are the reorganization of capital required to correct the malinvestments and distortions caused by the preceding artificially-low interest rate fueled boom. The depression is the cure. The bankercrat boom is the disease.


That is just a silly linearization of the dynamics. The notion that there is no feedback during recessions and depressions is simply absurd. How compartmentalized can this politically motivated "economics" get. Mild recessions could be considered quasi-linear but depressions are full on spirals of GDP decline. The drop in consumption precipitated by debt accumulation triggers further drops in consumption from unemployment, which reduces employment due to production drops and leads to further consumption decline.

During the 2008-9 Great Recession there were global centers of economic activity, mainly China, that were decoupled from the US recession which prevented it from turning into another Great Depression. Back in the 1930s the USA still had a normal economy with domestic production and not a junk import and resale at markup trickle down miracle that it has today. So talking about production declines coupled with consumer demand made sense. The cheap credit policy of Greenspan, facilitated by globalization of finance, hid the direct effects of job offshoring and the gutting of American industry in the last 20 years (it started in the 1970s but all the downsizing and rightsizing started in the 1990s). So the US consumer is floating on debt and not actual jobs. This is not a sustainable economic state for the US middle class. But corporations could care less since for every impoverished US consumer there are a couple of more up and coming consumers (primarily in China and India) that allow their incomes and profits to grow.

Clearly there is plenty of economic engineering in progress and it is not driven by big bad government.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby prajeshbhat » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 23:42:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Outcast_searcher wrote:-

1). Example 1: Society decides that at all costs, everyone must be employed, no matter what. So they spend their time digging Keynes' bottles out of holes, or imitating classic military punishment, spend their time digging one hole and filling it with dirt from another, and repeat that process all day, every "work" day of the year.

2). Example 2: People are free to work together to form privately run groups of people and attempt to make things, trade things, sell the things they make, etc. in the hopes of making an honest profit. (Hint - these groups could be called "companies".)


Lets take the first example. Government of USA spent billions on putting man on the moon. Was that a military punishment. The research and development that went into the project also led to vast advancements in the communication technology that is used in cellular phones all over the world today. Same with interstate highway. And internet. The list goes on.

Now the second example. Are you saying all profits made by private enterprises are honest profits? If that was the case nobody would be having this argument in the first place.

If I make electronic ballot machines, am I a private businessman or a government employee.
Last edited by prajeshbhat on Wed 03 Aug 2011, 23:50:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby americandream » Wed 03 Aug 2011, 23:46:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'T')he national socialists were elected after the Weimar hyperinflation destroyed the society. And to set the record straight, a balanced budget is not austerity. The 2012 budget would be balanced if the government could restrict itself to 2004 level expenditures.


Wasn't it Clinton who left Bush (Republican 'balanced budget" candidate) with a surplus regime which he promptly squandered, as did that other "balanced budget" ideologue, Raegan? I'm sure conservative (as in cut taxes but subsidise business) apologists will overwhelm us with a load of stats which say otherwise but the fact remains that the party that poses as the responsible one has a tendency to live beyond it's means in the process leaving the liberals to pick up the tab, which they graciously do by virtue of the fact that the "ideologues" have a habit of grabbing the high ground by making one helluva racket.
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Re: Hayek was a Moron

Unread postby wisconsin_cur » Thu 04 Aug 2011, 09:32:13

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'T')he national socialists were elected after the Weimar hyperinflation destroyed the society. And to set the record straight, a balanced budget is not austerity. The 2012 budget would be balanced if the government could restrict itself to 2004 level expenditures.


Wasn't it Clinton who left Bush (Republican 'balanced budget" candidate) with a surplus regime which he promptly squandered, as did that other "balanced budget" ideologue, Raegan? I'm sure conservative (as in cut taxes but subsidise business) apologists will overwhelm us with a load of stats which say otherwise but the fact remains that the party that poses as the responsible one has a tendency to live beyond it's means in the process leaving the liberals to pick up the tab, which they graciously do by virtue of the fact that the "ideologues" have a habit of grabbing the high ground by making one helluva racket.


The Clinton surplus was a function of the tech boom which had a corresponding boom in tax receipts. I'm all for pillorying Bush II and his Republican Congress for their out of control spending but Clinton's surplus was a function of both chance (the boom) and triangulation (his Republican Congress).

It seems to me that both parties have contributed to the problem and the only time we have reduced the rate of regress (I refuse to call it progress) is when we have had a divided government which forced the conservatives to be true to their base and liberals to attempt to make themselves reduce the distinction between themselves and the conservatives.
http://www.thenewfederalistpapers.com
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