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Scott Richards
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 September 2005
Posts: 1258
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 1
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Then it must be true! How could a bitter, defeated rival be anything other than honest?
Edited by Scott Richards on 04 September 2008 at 7:04am
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Bruce Buchanan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 June 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4797
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:09am | IP Logged | 2
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I do not give her any respect as she has done nothing to deserve it. She's everything I despise in a person, much less a politician.
******************
Good grief, Mike -- take a deep breath. Or two.
It's okay to disagree with people without demonizing them, y'know. About the only thing I agree with Obama on is that basketball is a great sport. But I don't "despise" the man. In fact, I suspect Obama is a good, decent fellow.
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Al Cook
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Posts: 12735
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:15am | IP Logged | 3
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Scott Richards wrote:
Then it must be true! How could a bitter,
defeated rival be anything other than honest? |
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Wow. I thought you were all about not characterizing a people you don't
know (at least that's what I got from your dressing-down of Mike O'Brien
for saying that Palin was everything he despised in a person).
Who here has evidence that Stein (the former mayor in question) was
lying? Who here has evidence that he is bitter and vengeful? Anyone?
Anyone? Beuller?
Obviously, Time had no such evidence, or they would not have printed his
statement.
Edited to add quote for context.
Edited by Al Cook on 04 September 2008 at 7:21am
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:22am | IP Logged | 4
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An actual, espousing anarchist? Of whatever varied flavor, though I can imagine your distaste at the thought of someone labeling you. Wow. One sees so few of your kind managing to survive in captivity, Michael.
Michael Retour wrote:
| Nah, Keynes I don't go for or Krugman either. They remind me of "liberal" Milton Friedmans." |
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Smiling. I get it. Shouldn't it properly be "Neoliberal" Milton Friedmans? You wouldn't want to get things mixed up.
QUOTE:
| Our mixed economy" needs a definition. The present economy doesn't function at all. Whatever mix you're talking about define for me. I am all ears." |
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Doesn't function at all? According to what...the labor value? Marginal utility? Opportunity cost? Rational Expectations? Post Keynesian theory? What? Well, Michael, since I haven't yet had to kill a six-foot-tall mutant squirrel to feed my family; nor faced the necessity of forming a roving motorcycle gang of scavengers to help ease my struggle for existence in this cruel world...not to mention the two of us enjoying the leisure of chatting about favorite comic book creators over the internet...something is functioning.
Michael you stated that both the Austrian and Chicago schools were dismissed failures. The fact is that the United States incorporates practices and theory of both into our largely Keynesian welfare state. Keynesian theory, itself, was revised to wholly incorporate elements--like a more balanced monetary system and money supply--of the Chicago School (itself an updated form of Quantity theory). How about privatization and free trade? Being heterodox, less so the Austrian School, though, among other aspects, our outlook on entreprenuerialism is a direct contribution.
Of course, I now understand that you believe ALL dominant economic theory to be a failure, so I suppose the initial statement was purely rhetorical.
QUOTE:
| I didn't make a summation of the Chicago Boys, except to say they liked Pinochet and that's a fact. I asserted that the Chicago School's half-baked ideas are preferred, by the originators, under fascism. I believe there is a Friedman quote out there someplace to back this up. It doesn't get a lot of press play but then again we don't really have a free press. |
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Free press? Of course not. Michael, I believe you're recalling Hayek's quote to the effect that between the choice of a highly interventionist democratic government and a passive dictatorship, he would place greater faith for genuine, individual freedoms in that of a passive dictatorship. Friedman may well have voiced similar thoughts on the subject of a heavily regulated economy, but Hayek's expression is certainly better known.
As it stands, your assertion is in error on two counts. First, if you'll look over my post, you'll see that in asking for clarification of your point, I stated that Keynesian theory is the more liable to collectivist interpretation of any sort; leading, the Chicago School would argue, to a greater threat of totalitarianism and ultimate, irretrievable economic failure. Again, this IS the case, as Keynes himself admitted. Second, the Chicago School does not offer even the hint of a preference, a priori, for ANY ideological system as the "preferred" operating ground for its theories. It CANNOT. NO serious economic theory has EVER voiced a preference in this regard. The ENTIRE point of economic theory, like capitalism or socialism broadly, is to STATE an answer to the omnipresent question of the economic problem; thereby allowing only for the DICTATING of ideology. Even the classic critique of neoclassical theory as ideology in itself extends only to the positing of human agency (rational, individual utility). As an example, consider the Socialist Calculation Debate. Or the Austrian School attacks upon fascism; wherein they are attacking their view of a failed economic theory BECAUSE, in their view, fascism interferes with the proper, a priori prerequisite of sound economic theory.
I'd love to see the exact quote, Michael. As vain as Friedman is held to have been, and he's going to undercut the entire Chicago School by crippling the very basis of its own economic theory at the outset?
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| I am not talking about "Latin" admirers of the Chicago School (a thin veil for the Austrian School). That is just public record. Deny it all you like but history is history. Read what Pinochet wanted to do, who installed him and what economic philosophy he followed. You make it sound like this was just a group of rouge traders, like the poor sap that brought down LTCM (who really didn't). |
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Do I? Or did I say that Keynesian theory is more liable to result in totalitarian ends than ever the Chicago School? Read my question to you in the previous post, one more time. The LTCM hedge? Pass. I'm only good for so many conspiracy theories in any given twenty-four hour period. I'm saving space for any future mention of Rockefeller and the Trilateralists.
Say, do you think the Nixon administrations hostility towards Allende had anything to do with the nationalizing of American-owned businesses in Chile? Or was it just some nefarious scheme by Schultz and his cronies?
QUOTE:
| "Milty Friedman isn't "Latin" and he dubbed Pinochet's Chile -- quoting here -- a "miracle" so please spare me." |
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Now, I claimed Milton Friedman was latin? I was a little young to now recall the press furor, Michael, but I do know that Friedman was referring to the first round of economic reforms in Chile as an "economic miracle", and not to Pinochet's atrocities in consolidating the coup. As it is, long after Pinochet, Chile still maintains the broad economic policy in an only modified form with still relatively negligible regulation. Since we're discussing economic theory and not geopolitical upheavals, should I recount Chile's economic prosperity over the last three-decades? What is it? Four years of downturn in thirty years?
QUOTE:
| "You won't put me in a box of defending Bob Rubin's choices either. |
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I'll try to remember.
QUOTE:
| The monetarists have failed like no other failures in history. Skip Marx because, for me, he was just a failed monetarist who adopted some crazy theories. Who cares? Socialism/communism and monetarism are failures. |
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Given your rejection of just about every accepted mainstream economic theory of government (and most heterodox theories, as well), how could they not be failures according to your lights? Shall we all just wait for the mother ship to pluck us up, or what?
QUOTE:
| The Austrian School and Chicago School children of the Austrians were just particularly whacked out. |
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'So whacked that we continue to work to adopt certain models and adapt others to fit the current Keynesian macroeconomic line. Right.
QUOTE:
| The current economic system is dead, kaput. It won't be salvaged by Obama or McCain. |
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I've heard it all before, and it goes back at least two hundred years. Through Mercantilism, the Jacksonian model, the American system, etc. One system only modifying the preceding system, to gradually supplant that system. And yet, here, America stands. The most diverse, most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Through idealism and moral failure; internal struggle and external strife...here, we stand.
And, Michael, every sort of two-bit Cassandra with a head full of bad dreams and a handful of wrinkled pamphlets has argued themselves hoarse over the impossibility of it all. 'Wiling away their afternoons on street-corners around the world and all pondering that glorious day when reality would finally decide to play nice with their fevered, empty prophecies. The innovation of the internet just makes it easier, by allowing them to create their own metaphorical street-corners.
Were I you, Michael, I wouldn't hold my breath.
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:25am | IP Logged | 5
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QUOTE:
Lastly, yes GDP is a useless metric as are unemployment numbers and so on. Anyone remotely familiar with the BLS ought to know that.
So, in answer to the question: it was me. |
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I thought I recalled the name.
Michael, whatever your thoughts on Chairman Bernanke or classical/neoclassical theory, the Fed DOES still employ something called a monetary policy. In this vein, real GDP IS the most comprehensive measure of the performance of the U.S. economy. Why? When the Bureau's stats are revised in context, what metric dominates that revision? The Federal Reserve's 'official', primary goal is sustained growth of the economy with managed inflation, right? By monitoring trends in the overall growth rate of real GDP, as well as Nonfarm Payroll Employment and the rate of inflation, policy makers are able to assess whether the current stance of monetary policy is consistent with overarching monetary policy goals.
Real GDP IS a lagging indicator--no surprise when dealing with a more than $10 trillion dollar economy, or one-third of the world's economy and some data-sets that only publish annually--and lacks the at hand relevance of CPI or M2 data, but it is still the final arbiter and everything else is eventually quantified on this basis. Period. As used in context of your previous discussion of a comparison between, say, Russia and the United States? Real GDP is the ONLY comprehensive measure of economic performance for either country.
Would you suggest we, in its stead, adopt the "World Happiness Vector"? The Gini index? What? But, no. According to you, the CPI, M!, M2, NPE, Housing Starts, "and so on"--in your words--are ALL just useless metrics.
First, the Chicago School of Economics, winner of more Nobel awards than any other school of economic thought, has long ago taken to undercutting its own theories by stating that they aren't really economic theories at all, in any meaningful sense, as they believe their positivist theories best work only in limited scenarios and under specific ideologies; then, all accepted economic theory is useless. Now this?
You realize I think you're as crazy as a clutch of shithouse rats, right?
Edited by Michael Myers on 04 September 2008 at 7:33am
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Al Cook
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Posts: 12735
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 7:32am | IP Logged | 6
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OK, now I'm dying of curiousity: what do you do for a living, Michael?
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Monte Gruhlke
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3299
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:00am | IP Logged | 7
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The USA is definitely diverse, but as for being the most prosperous country - prosperous for whom? How would you define prosperity? Most everyone I know is living week to week, wondering when the next round of layoffs will be.
Coincientally, I am one of those people that earns less $5,000,000 a year - I don't even earn $250,000.
Clutch of Shithouse Rats... is that like a Murder of Crows? I'll have to write that down.
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Mark McKay
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2296
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:03am | IP Logged | 8
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QUOTE:
| OK, now I'm dying of curiousity: what do you do for a living, Michael? |
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He's a gas station clerk, can't you tell!?
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Jeff Gillmer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 August 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1920
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:08am | IP Logged | 9
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"Who here has evidence that Stein (the former mayor in question) was
lying? Who here has evidence that he is bitter and vengeful? Anyone?
Anyone? Beuller?
Obviously, Time had no such evidence, or they would not have printed his
statement."
Thanks for the morning chuckle Al.
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Tom French
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4154
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:11am | IP Logged | 10
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Coincientally, I am one of those people that earns less $5,000,000 a year - I don't even earn $250,000
FIVE of me doesn't earn $250K
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Al Cook
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 December 2004
Posts: 12735
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:12am | IP Logged | 11
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Ferris Beuller references are always good for a chuckle!
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Scott Richards
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 September 2005
Posts: 1258
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| Posted: 04 September 2008 at 8:18am | IP Logged | 12
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Who here has evidence that Stein (the former mayor in question) was
lying? Who here has evidence that he is bitter and vengeful? Anyone?
Anyone? Beuller?
I said bitter and defeated, not bitter and vengeful. It's human nature to be a bit bitter when you've been defeated. No one likes to lose. It was an educated guess based on human nature.
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Topic Closed)
