The U.S. Economy: Stand by for more worse news

[iceaura]

The word "capitalism" is used by various people in different meanings, and the meaning used in the word "anarcho-capitalism" is indistinguishable from a free market society.

So your posts only make sense when addressed to your fellow "anarcho-capitalists", using your special code language. That explains a lot.

Do you have a decoder ring, or some kind of app, for the uninitiated?

The American one is famous to be much more expansive than everywhere else, and the US can be considered as a classical example of corportatism. Checked

So do we have agreement, then, that the US system is not significantly (structurally) socialist? That sounds hopeful, but I don't have my decoder ring on

As well as the fact that they did means they did. What is the information given by this tautology? To support your belief that there was no state regulation of banking before the New Deal?

Focus. It's not that difficult: We were talking about the banking disaster in Japan, in which the lack of State regulation played a large part - similar to the American banking disaster of 2008, which followed from the repeal of some key New Deal regulations and other lapses in oversight in America.

Quality is nothing which can be easily compared. Communists like to hail the health care in Cuba, corporatists that of the US, too much ideological influence.

So if anyone with too much ideological bias says stuff in public, you become confused and unable to think clearly about factual matters. That's unfortunate.

Quality in health care delivered to a society is something one can address via physical evidence, reasoning, etc, in my experience.

Moreover, in societies with some inequality there may be high quality for the rich and low quality for the poor, so that averaging over the whole society becomes nonsensical.

So you are incapable of evaluating the quality of health care provided to the citizens of a corporatist society in which high levels of inequality exist.

That's going to be a handicap in defending your claim that corporatist societies provide higher quality health care, and socialist societies lower quality.

 

[Michael]

Via Bloomberg TV:

Regarding the US economy.
Greenspan: “We’re in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water…Real capital investment is way below average. Why? Because business people are very uncertain about the future.”

Regarding Dodd-Frank:
Greenspan: "The regulations are supposed to be making changes of addressing the problems that existed in 2008 or leading up to 2008. It's not doing that. 'Too Big to Fail' is a critical issue back then, and now. And, there is nothing in Dodd-Frank which actually addresses this issue."

Regarding his optimism going forward:
Greenspan: "No. I haven't been for quite a while. And I won’t be until we can resolve the entitlement programs. Nobody wants to touch it. And that is gradually crowding out capital investment, and that's crowding out productivity, and it's crowding out the standards of living where do you want me to go from there."

Straight from the Central Planning "Maestro's" mouth. It's all the poor people's fault. Oh well, soon the Central Planners will invent a new reason to go to war, and that'll solve 'that' little problem.

 

[Michael]

........ ........

 

[joepistole]

Via Bloomberg TV:

Regarding the US economy.
Greenspan: “We’re in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water…Real capital investment is way below average. Why? Because business people are very uncertain about the future.”

Regarding Dodd-Frank:
Greenspan: "The regulations are supposed to be making changes of addressing the problems that existed in 2008 or leading up to 2008. It's not doing that. 'Too Big to Fail' is a critical issue back then, and now. And, there is nothing in Dodd-Frank which actually addresses this issue."

Regarding his optimism going forward:
Greenspan: "No. I haven't been for quite a while. And I won’t be until we can resolve the entitlement programs. Nobody wants to touch it. And that is gradually crowding out capital investment, and that's crowding out productivity, and it's crowding out the standards of living where do you want me to go from there."

Straight from the Central Planning "Maestro's" mouth. It's all the poor people's fault. Oh well, soon the Central Planners will invent a new reason to go to war, and that'll solve 'that' little problem.

....you mean the same Greenspan who brought us the deregulation which created the Great Recession...that Greenspan? Oh, the irony....

 

[Schmelzer]

I delete joepistoles requests for proofs (given he is known to be unable to accept any proofs, and rejects all sources which are not NATO propaganda as evidence) and the usual primitive personal attacks.

You, at the very least have said unregulated markets are better than regulated markets. You are and have been staunchly against government regulation - except when Putin makes them.

Of course, unregulated markets are better than regulated ones. Whatever advantage a regulation can give, this does not require a government - the local owner of the market can impose this regulation.

And, of course, if Putin regulates Russian markets, this is not helpful for the Russian markets too. Of course, if Putin makes counter-sanctions, he harms the Russian markets, and the Russian people who want to buy European products. There is, of course, an argument what these counter-sanctions have also a positive aspect: Russian producers will start to produce what is forbidden to import. This argument is insufficient - there are always some people who are favored, others are disfavored. The disadvantages are greater, which is a quite simple and general argument. There is a valid argument, namely that Putin expects that the US aggression may become more serious in future, and in this case the harm caused by a too large dependence on Western imports may cause much more serious harm than what is caused by the counter-sanctions themself. This argument depends on the expectation that the relations with the West may become even worse than now. It is about security of Russia in such a situation. If this prediction is false, it is clear that the counter-sanctions do more harm. One can consider this as a sort of insurance payment - restricting the import and export causes harm, like paying insurance, but helps a lot if, because of some global crisis, sanctions or whatever else, the trade collapses.

I recognize that "free market" is a quite positive-valued notion, so everybody wants to sell the own markets as "free markets".

In many ways government regulation creates and sustains a market. It adds value to the market. As an example, food and drugs must meet government health standards. It ensures safe products are sold. Knowing that adds value to buyers of food and drugs.

That regulation creates and sustains markets is simply nonsense. About adding value is another question. I know about a simple way which adds value to my local shop for at least one buyer, me. He would have to throw out everything I don't like, and would have to include into his assortment everything I like. This regulation would be quite fatal to the market, but it would add value for me.

In a similar way, a lot of market regulations plausibly add value even to many buyers - but not to all. Excluding cheap low quality things adds value to those who don't want to buy the low quality things anyway. They now do not have to care about some minimal quality level, and can simply take the cheapest thing offered without caring about quality.

But there would be a simple way to making the rich comfortable without harming the poor: Quality labels. Nobody, not even libertatians, would object if the government issues quality labels. Those trade marks who want the quality label have to pay for the related bureaucracy (including quality controls and so on). Those who don't simply get no label. Similarly shops: If all products they sell have a minimal quality label, the shop will be allowed to have this quality label too.

Then you can decide: Or you care about the question if each piece you buy has a quality label, or you care about the quality label of the shop where you buy. A little bit less comfortable for you, you have to care about something. But if you are too poor to care about, you can also buy the cheaper, low quality things which are forbidden today.

The problem of cheating is independent of this. It exists in regulated markets as well.

Bank runs which were common before regulation of the banking system were commonplace.

The point being? It does not matter at all how often this happens. Giving money to a bank is risky, in the free market. You have to care, if not, you have to prepare for making a bank run every day. Such is life.

There are insurances for every risk, for this risk too. With insurance, you couldn't care less about running, you will get your money back. It does not even matter who pays the insurance - you for having returned your own account, the bank for all their customers, or the state for all its banks. Given that insurance is possible on the free market, the possibility not to care about bank runs is available on the free market too. But in the last case you are simply forced to pay for the insurance, via taxation.

Which is, of course, nice for the rich guys. For them, the insurance is worth much more (once they have much more money at the bank) than to the poor. Yet another example how state regulation helps the rich, and redistributes in favor of the rich.

Oh, so you don't remember writing, "There are property rights and there is a non-aggression principle."? I asked you what you meant? What is this non-aggression principal.

If you would have asked "What is this non-aggression principle" I would have given a different answer. You haven't.

You just admitted reputation didn't work but then you think reputation is superior. Well if it didn't work, it didn't work.

It does not work if the number of participants becomes too large. It is superior if the number is small. No contradiction, but different situations.

The result is that, despite state police and state courts, small networks - small enough for reputation to work better - play an important role in real life. People prefer to cooperate with those from their own networks, because reputation inside the network works much better than contract enforcement via police and courts. And they have contracts with others, outside their networks, mainly for much less important things, small shopping and so on.

That sounds like a rare admission. Libertarian societies have all failed. Now you can offer excuses as you have done. But the fact remains, attempts at creating a Libertarian society have all failed. And they have failed for all the reasons that have have been repeatedly brought to your attention.

This is not an admission, this is a position which I defend already a long time. See http://ilja-schmelzer.de/network/stranger.php where I explain this problem.

And I would never propose libertarian ideas if I would not see a clear possibility to overcome this problem. A solution which is presented at http://ilja-schmelzer.de/network/
Given that this proposal has not been tried out up to now, the failure of libertarian attempts in the past is not an argument against my proposal.

 

[Schmelzer]

Here I also have to add that I have deleted without comment the usual personal attacks.

So your posts only make sense when addressed to your fellow "anarcho-capitalists", using your special code language.

No. I would say if you consider the meaning which Marx has applied to "capitalism", it is not much different. It is, in fact, quite close to that of minimal state libertarians, where all the state has to do is to defend ownership and freedom of contract. And for the bourgeois this is sufficient, because this is all they need, because the proletarians have to sell their working time for cheap and the capital gives profit even in a completely free market. That his economic theory fails is another question, but if you think that he has seen a lot of regulations as necessary for capitalism, I would ask you to support this with quotes.

So do we have agreement, then, that the US system is not significantly (structurally) socialist?

No. This notion "structurally socialis" is too vague for me to make definite statements about this. About vague and uncertain notions we can agree about vague and uncertain claims. Like the one that the US is less socialist than Western Europe or so. But not more.

We were talking about the banking disaster in Japan, in which the lack of State regulation played a large part - similar to the American banking disaster of 2008, which followed from the repeal of some key New Deal regulations and other lapses in oversight in America.

Thanks, this supports my point. You argue about different variants of regulation, the New Deal regulations vs. neoliberal or so regulations. None of this has anything to do with a free market.

Quality in health care delivered to a society is something one can address via physical evidence, reasoning, etc, in my experience.

I would not say it is completely impossible. But you have to start with a strong scientific attitude, and to face serious conceptual problems.

Just to explain with an extremal example: A society with obligatory check of all unborn children for genetical defects, which aborts 80% of all children for such defects. But they are fair and count them as living beings, who died at age 0. One may not like it, this example is not about this, but the average live expectation will be 30 years even if all those who survive this check live 150 years. So what does the live expectation tell us about health?

Once one has recognized that there are no such simple ways to evaluate "health care delivered to a society", given that this animal is not even well-defined, one may try to overcome these problems. But this has a realistic chance only if all participants have a sufficiently strong scientific attitude. So, I see no chance for this in a discussion with you, your ideological attitude seems much too strong.

So you are incapable of evaluating the quality of health care provided to the citizens of a corporatist society in which high levels of inequality exist.

One can expect they provide good health care to the rich, and not that good to the poor. Or, in other words, good health care for a high price and lower quality for lower price.

The statement about socialist health care requires similar corrections, by the way. The standard health care, provided to everybody, will be low quality. But there usually exist also high quality special health care. Also for free, but not for everybody, only for the nomenclatura.

Simplifications, which one has to use in such forum posts, are not more than simplifications.

 

[joepistole]

I delete joepistoles requests for proofs (given he is known to be unable to accept any proofs, and rejects all sources which are not NATO propaganda as evidence) and the usual primitive personal attacks.

LOL...yeah, you always delete requests for proofs, because you don't have any. You never have any, and you never offer any.....funny how that works.

And here is the thing, you have absolutely no evidence that even a single proof you have repeatedly dismissed wasn't truthful and accurate or in anyway related to NATO, much less propaganda. You have been repeatedly challenged to prove any of the many facts you summarily and without merit dismiss as NATO propaganda are in fact wrong or propaganda, and you have repeatedly failed to do so or even attempt to do so. You are doing what you do best, be dishonest.

Of course, unregulated markets are better than regulated ones. Whatever advantage a regulation can give, this does not require a government - the local owner of the market can impose this regulation.

Except that isn't borne out by centuries of data. You keep going back to your notion that if you dump a bunch of Scramble tiles from a bag they will magically form words. The world doesn't work that way. All organisms require regulation. Our bodies require regulation. The world is a series of processes, without regulation you have chaos. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, your beliefs violate the laws of the universe and more specifically, the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

And, of course, if Putin regulates Russian markets, this is not helpful for the Russian markets too. Of course, if Putin makes counter-sanctions, he harms the Russian markets, and the Russian people who want to buy European products. There is, of course, an argument what these counter-sanctions have also a positive aspect: Russian producers will start to produce what is forbidden to import. This argument is insufficient - there are always some people who are favored, others are disfavored. The disadvantages are greater, which is a quite simple and general argument. There is a valid argument, namely that Putin expects that the US aggression may become more serious in future, and in this case the harm caused by a too large dependence on Western imports may cause much more serious harm than what is caused by the counter-sanctions themself. This argument depends on the expectation that the relations with the West may become even worse than now. It is about security of Russia in such a situation. If this prediction is false, it is clear that the counter-sanctions do more harm. One can consider this as a sort of insurance payment - restricting the import and export causes harm, like paying insurance, but helps a lot if, because of some global crisis, sanctions or whatever else, the trade collapses.

Well, not surprisingly, you are talking out of both sides of your mouth now. Regulation is bad, except when your beloved Putin does it. And has been repeatedly pointed out to you, the only aggressor here is your beloved Mother Putin. Putin is the guy who has invaded and annexed the lands of his neighbors - not the US.

I recognize that "free market" is a quite positive-valued notion, so everybody wants to sell the own markets as "free markets".

You don't understand what a free market is. You don't know how to define a market.

That regulation creates and sustains markets is simply nonsense. About adding value is another question. I know about a simple way which adds value to my local shop for at least one buyer, me. He would have to throw out everything I don't like, and would have to include into his assortment everything I like. This regulation would be quite fatal to the market, but it would add value for me.

Except it isn't. It's one of those many facts and centuries of data you like to ignore. It's why banks are regulated. It's why banks are more stable now than they have ever been - with the exception of the Glass-Steagal period.

In a similar way, a lot of market regulations plausibly add value even to many buyers - but not to all. Excluding cheap low quality things adds value to those who don't want to buy the low quality things anyway. They now do not have to care about some minimal quality level, and can simply take the cheapest thing offered without caring about quality.

But there would be a simple way to making the rich comfortable without harming the poor: Quality labels. Nobody, not even libertatians, would object if the government issues quality labels. Those trade marks who want the quality label have to pay for the related bureaucracy (including quality controls and so on). Those who don't simply get no label. Similarly shops: If all products they sell have a minimal quality label, the shop will be allowed to have this quality label too.

Then you can decide: Or you care about the question if each piece you buy has a quality label, or you care about the quality label of the shop where you buy. A little bit less comfortable for you, you have to care about something. But if you are too poor to care about, you can also buy the cheaper, low quality things which are forbidden today.

Well you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth again....admitting the value of government regulation while simultaneously denying it. Why would anyone want to eat unsafe food? Why would anyone want to drive unsafe cars or unsafe airplanes? And then there is the problem of keeping government labels attached to products like food. And then there are 3rd parties who are affected by poor choices, if someone buys unsafe good and gets ill, who pays for their medical costs or their burial? Who pays for the innocent victims who are injured or killed because an unsafe car caused an accident. Part of the problem, with Libertarianism is that it requires people to be injured before remedies can be considered and victims could die before given remedies. It's best to be proactive rather than reactive. Government regulation is proactive. It prevents the problem or injury from occurring.

The problem of cheating is independent of this. It exists in regulated markets as well.

I don't see how that is relevant. If you don't have regulation, you don't have cheating.

 

[joepistole]

The point being? It does not matter at all how often this happens. Giving money to a bank is risky, in the free market. You have to care, if not, you have to prepare for making a bank run every day. Such is life.

And that creates an inefficient use of capital which isn't constructive to economic growth and development.

There are insurances for every risk, for this risk too. With insurance, you couldn't care less about running, you will get your money back. It does not even matter who pays the insurance - you for having returned your own account, the bank for all their customers, or the state for all its banks. Given that insurance is possible on the free market, the possibility not to care about bank runs is available on the free market too. But in the last case you are simply forced to pay for the insurance, via taxation.

Insurances are available to mitigate risks. But that insurance is only as good as the insurer. Insurers do go bankrupt, and you don't have far to look to find an example (e.g. AIG). There is only one insurer big enough and financially strong enough to insure banks and that is government. The insures banks through a self funding government agency and in order to mitigate government risk, it regulate banks.

Which is, of course, nice for the rich guys. For them, the insurance is worth much more (once they have much more money at the bank) than to the poor. Yet another example how state regulation helps the rich, and redistributes in favor of the rich.

That's nonsense. The US government only insures relatively small depositors. Big depositors have other risk mitigation measures they employ which includes private insurance and diversification, hedging, etc. That doesn't help the rich at the expense of the poor. Incidentally, if private insurers are involved, they too will insist upon some regulation. Insurers aren't stupid.

If you would have asked "What is this non-aggression principle" I would have given a different answer. You haven't.

You are yet again not being honest comrade. Answer the question.

It does not work if the number of participants becomes too large. It is superior if the number is small. No contradiction, but different situations.

The result is that, despite state police and state courts, small networks - small enough for reputation to work better - play an important role in real life. People prefer to cooperate with those from their own networks, because reputation inside the network works much better than contract enforcement via police and courts. And they have contracts with others, outside their networks, mainly for much less important things, small shopping and so on.

Given that this proposal has not been tried out up to now, the failure of libertarian attempts in the past is not an argument against my proposal.

You just frequently contradict yourself. The fact is despite all the attempts to create a Libertarian utopia, they have all failed, and the reason they have all failed because, as has been repeatedly explained to you, Libertarian principals are just not grounded in reality. They are not consistent with the laws of physics. They are instead rooted in a profound ignorance of human nature, the same ignorance of human nature which destroyed the Soviet Union. That's why there will never be a Libertarian utopia.

 

[Schmelzer]

After deleting the usual nonsense, not much remains:

Why would anyone want to eat unsafe food? Why would anyone want to drive unsafe cars or unsafe airplanes?

People often prefer cheaper things. May be simply because they don't have enough money. And what is "unsafe" for a government bueaucrat, who follows the suggestion of some competitor of the factory producing the "unsafe" thing is not necessarily unsafe.

And then there is the problem of keeping government labels attached to products like food. And then there are 3rd parties who are affected by poor choices, if someone buys unsafe good and gets ill, who pays for their medical costs or their burial?

If you want to help such guys, feel free to do so. If not, so what? If nobody wants, it is a fine democratic decision, not?

Who pays for the innocent victims who are injured or killed because an unsafe car caused an accident.

The driver of the unsafe car, of course.

Part of the problem, with Libertarianism is that it requires people to be injured before remedies can be considered and victims could die before given remedies. It's best to be proactive rather than reactive.

People are proactive enough, if it is their own risk. Then, there are insurances. In a free market system, insurances would be the natural partner to care about security. If you want to insure your care, or your home against fire or so, or your health, expect some checks, with much higher insurance premiums if this is unsafe.

If you don't have regulation, you don't have cheating.

LOL. If you tell me lies about the thing you sell me you cheat. This is something one learns as a small child, when one learns the meaning of the word "cheating". You don't need a state regulation for this.

But that insurance is only as good as the insurer. Insurers do go bankrupt, and you don't have far to look to find an example (e.g. AIG).

Yes. And if the government plays insurer, this insurance is also only as good as the state. That means, it is a corrupt horde of bureaucrats who are known to rob people naming this taxation.

That's nonsense. The US government only insures relatively small depositors.

https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/covered/ "Each depositor insured to at least $250,000 per insured bank" Somebody who owns so much that this becomes relevant is rich. In particular if we remember that the rich hardly have that much cash money, but have invested them. Note also the "per insured bank". So I can easily be a millionaire in cash and have all the cash insured, by the taxes of those who do not even have a bank account.

Incidentally, if private insurers are involved, they too will insist upon some regulation. Insurers aren't stupid.

Yes. And this is the reasonable way to regulate. Those who are ready for higher risk, have to pay higher premiums, or do not get insurance at all.

You are yet again not being honest comrade. Answer the question.

I have already answered, I don't know any guy named non-aggression principal. For the other question, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

The fact is despite all the attempts to create a Libertarian utopia, they have all failed, and the reason they have all failed because, as has been repeatedly explained to you, Libertarian principals are just not grounded in reality. They are not consistent with the laws of physics.

Which is nonsense. Because libertarian societies work nicely on the small scale, in small communities where they all know each other. If you would be correct, this would be impossible. Because even small communities live in reality and their living has to be consistent with the laws of physics.

My explanation is much more reasonable, because it explains why small libertarian societies are unproblematic, but big ones have failed up to now.

 

[joepistole]

After deleting the usual nonsense, not much remains:

LOL....unfortunately for you comrade, the truth isn't nonsense.

People often prefer cheaper things. May be simply because they don't have enough money. And what is "unsafe" for a government bueaucrat, who follows the suggestion of some competitor of the factory producing the "unsafe" thing is not necessarily unsafe.

If you want to help such guys, feel free to do so. If not, so what? If nobody wants, it is a fine democratic decision, not?

The driver of the unsafe car, of course.

The rest of the world isn't like Mother Russia. Outside Mother Russia and in the Western world, government bureaucrats aren't monsters lurking in crevices to victimize civilians. This isn't about cheap. It's about safety. Would you want to eat unsafe foods, ride in unsafe cars? Maybe you would considering you like Mother Russia. Unlike you and your beloved Mother Russia, in the Western world government bureaucrats use data to make these decisions, and often those decisions are made with input from industry and consumers.

In the US and other portions of the civilized world people do want safer cars, food, etc. That's why regulations to ensure safety are commonplace worldwide. As as previously pointed out, you are ignoring external cost factors. You are ignoring the damages these low quality goods inflict in innocent people who were not a party to the decision to buy unsafe goods.

People are proactive enough, if it is their own risk. Then, there are insurances. In a free market system, insurances would be the natural partner to care about security. If you want to insure your care, or your home against fire or so, or your health, expect some checks, with much higher insurance premiums if this is unsafe.

Yes people are proactive, that's why they have enacted laws, regulations, which prevent injuries. One can only claim insurance after damage has been suffered. Insurance isn't proactive. Additionally, no partner is big enough to pay any loss. No bank or coalition of banks would have been able to mitigate or prevent the damage inflicted by the Great Recession. They just aren't big enough. They don't have unlimited funds.

LOL. If you tell me lies about the thing you sell me you cheat. This is something one learns as a small child, when one learns the meaning of the word "cheating". You don't need a state regulation for this.

No, it isn't. It's either sales puffery or fraud. Apparently, they don't teach the word "cheating" in Mother Russia, I wonder why. Cheating relates to fairness and with no able to define what is fair and what isn't, nothing is fair and everything is fair. Without an arbiter of what is fair and what isn't you have chaos where the person with the largest muscles usually wins.

Yes. And if the government plays insurer, this insurance is also only as good as the state. That means, it is a corrupt horde of bureaucrats who are known to rob people naming this taxation.

As I have repeatedly told you over the years, your experiences in Mother Russia are not representative of the world, and in particular the Western world. Government workers are not known to rob people. Mother Russia isn't the world. Government bureaucrats are generally not corrupt in the Western world. The state is larger and more powerful than any private entity could ever hope to be. Government can always create more money, private companies cannot.

https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/covered/

"Each depositor insured to at least $250,000 per insured bank" Somebody who owns so much that this becomes relevant is rich. In particular if we remember that the rich hardly have that much cash money, but have invested them. Note also the "per insured bank". So I can easily be a millionaire in cash and have all the cash insured, by the taxes of those who do not even have a bank account.

Sorry comrade, while $250,000 is a large sum of money, it doesn't make anyone "wealthy" in the US. It would in your beloved Mother Russia, but not in the US. The world isn't like Mother Russia.

Yes. And this is the reasonable way to regulate. Those who are ready for higher risk, have to pay higher premiums, or do not get insurance at all.

I have already answered, I don't know any guy named non-aggression principal. For the other question, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

Which is nonsense. Because libertarian societies work nicely on the small scale, in small communities where they all know each other. If you would be correct, this would be impossible. Because even small communities live in reality and their living has to be consistent with the laws of physics.

My explanation is much more reasonable, because it explains why small libertarian societies are unproblematic, but big ones have failed up to now.

Nonsense. The fact is Libertarian societies have always fallen, small or large. And that should be very troubling to you if facts mattered. But unfortunately, with you, they don't.

 

[Schmelzer]

LOL....unfortunately for you comrade, the truth isn't nonsense.

Truth is of course not nonsense, but what you name truth is nonsense.

This isn't about cheap. It's about safety. Would you want to eat unsafe foods, ride in unsafe cars?

I want to decide myself about my risk taking, and don't need the help of some government. Safety is not for free, so, even if the regulation really forbids only unsafe things (which only sheeple like joepistole believe) this leads to increasing prices.

in the Western world government bureaucrats use data to make these decisions, and often those decisions are made with input from industry and consumers.

Yes, of course, based on data about some transfers to some accounts somewhere ;-) And, of course, based on input from the industry, from the lobby which explains which regulation would harm the competitors in the most serious way.

In the US and other portions of the civilized world people do want safer cars, food, etc. That's why regulations to ensure safety are commonplace worldwide.

The people, of course, want safer cars and so on. So why not leave them the choice? Why behave as if the government knows better what is safe? Once you allow this, you behave like sheeple. The Russians are, in this relation, not much better. There is also far too much regulation in Russia.

As as previously pointed out, you are ignoring external cost factors. You are ignoring the damages these low quality goods inflict in innocent people who were not a party to the decision to buy unsafe goods.

Because in 90% of the cases they are irrelevant. And sometimes they cause even more harm. Modern cars are very safe for the car drivers, but if they hit a pedestrian or a bicycle they can cause much more harm because the speed will be greater - because the speed one drives depends on the own feeling of security, one tends to drive faster in safe cars.

Yes people are proactive, that's why they have enacted laws, regulations, which prevent injuries.

LOL, you really believe fairy tales about people making laws? In a world where laws are made by politicians in cooperation with lobbies, and 99% of the laws and regulations people do not even know?

One can only claim insurance after damage has been suffered. Insurance isn't proactive.

But insurance could, at least in a free market, make much better premiums for those who accept proactive measures.

Additionally, no partner is big enough to pay any loss. No bank or coalition of banks would have been able to mitigate or prevent the damage inflicted by the Great Recession.

And the government wasn't. And with a really free market, there would have been no Great Recession. There would be many smaller and shorter recessions, one for every stupid idea which reaches the masses and leads to a bubble, where all those who believed into the stupid but fashionable idea would loose depending on their investment, and nothing else, thus, only a quite short recession.

Without an arbiter of what is fair and what isn't you have chaos where the person with the largest muscles usually wins.

That's why reasonable people choose some arbiters, for the case of conflicts with their contracts.

And the sheeple are, instead, obliged to submit to the decisions of the watchdogs of those with the big guns, known as judges of the courts of the state.

As I have repeatedly told you over the years, your experiences in Mother Russia are not representative of the world, and in particular the Western world.

LOL, you don't even know how much time I have spend in Russia, and how much, in comparison, in the Western world.

Government bureaucrats are generally not corrupt in the Western world.

LOL. I have a look at the defense budgets, and can compare the results. The result is that 1\$ in the Russian defense budget gives much better results than 1\$ in the American budget. I don't think this happens because Americans are stupid or so, there are enough clever guys in the American weapon factories, they have the money to buy the best specialists from around the world. So. sorry, there is only one explanation, namely a much higher corruption rate in this particular domain.

The state is larger and more powerful than any private entity could ever hope to be. Government can always create more money, private companies cannot.

The state has the weapons. Your state rule is the rule of the jungle, the state wins because the state has the weapons, and the sheeple have a place in FEMA camps if they object.

Sorry comrade, while $250,000 is a large sum of money, it doesn't make anyone "wealthy" in the US.

Not sure about the American use of "wealthy", but I would name the upper 20% wealthy, not? Whatever, the point is that state-enforced insurance of bank accounts up to 250 000\$ for each banking account is a clear redistribution from poor to rich. For this point it would be already sufficient if the upper limit would be the average banking account (instead of his household worth, which is usually much more) of the median. Because anyway the rich would get the limit, the poor without a banking account would get nothing.

Nonsense. The fact is Libertarian societies have always fallen, small or large.

You fantasy is irrelevant.

 

[iceaura]

So your posts only make sense when addressed to your fellow "anarcho-capitalists", using your special code language.
No. I would say if you consider the meaning which Marx has applied to "capitalism", it is not much different

Quit changing the subject. Under your definition of capitalism, Goldman Sachs and General Motors and Exxon (major agents of American "corporatism") are not capitalist entities. I did not see that coming.

I think most people who speak English are going to be similarly led astray, thinking (for example) that the Exxon corporation, it's management, and its investors, comprise a capitalist entity - an example of capitalism.

Thanks, this supports my point. You argue about different variants of regulation, the New Deal regulations vs. neoliberal or so regulations. None of this has anything to do with a free market.

It contradicts your point. I did not argue about different variants of regulation, but about the presence or absence of regulations. You claim regulations existed where they did not exist. That allows you to deny the consequences of failing to regulate financial markets in the real world.

No. This notion "structurally socialis" is too vague for me to make definite statements about this

Not if you know what "socialist" means in the outside world. But after our adventures with "capitalist", we have to make inquiries here - just what do mean by that word, "socialist", when you use it?

So, I see no chance for this in a discussion with you, your ideological attitude seems much too strong.

We long ago established - as a high probability - that you were incapable of making accurate statements about my ideology. You don't know what it is. So your estimates of its strength are kind of silly.

But regardless: you are not limited to having a discussion with me, so none of my ideology prevents you from making accurate comparisons of the quality of health care delivered by socialist vs corporatist systems. The field is wide open for you here, and my presence is no excuse for failure.

This is a start, for example:

One can expect they provide good health care to the rich, and not that good to the poor. Or, in other words, good health care for a high price and lower quality for lower price.

That's a baby step, right there. Let's begin by noticing that in comparison with socialist setups your expectation is contradicted by observed reality: the US does not provide care to the poor (of any quality) at a lower price than any socialist setup on the planet. The US has the highest priced care on the planet for all its citizens - not just the rich.

Here's another:

The statement about socialist health care requires similar corrections, by the way. The standard health care, provided to everybody, will be low quality.

That expectation also appears to be contradicted by observable reality. The standard health care provided by at least two dozen socialist setups we can name is higher quality than the standard health care provided to US citizens.

And so forth.

And this is relevant, because this is a large and growing burden on the entire US economy. Between the larger sums devoted to health care and the lost productivity etc from that care being substandard, the US economy is severely handicapped compared with better arrangements.

 

[Schmelzer]

Under your definition of capitalism, Goldman Sachs and General Motors and Exxon (major agents of American "corporatism") are not capitalist entities. I did not see that coming.

They are also capitalist entities. But their power is much greater than for purely capitalist entities, because of their political power through the lobbies as well as all the related methods of influencing politicians.

You can, of course, think that paying Hillary Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars for her speeches is a classical free market thing - who knows, maybe Hillary is such a good speaker that she is worth that. And formally it is nothing else. But, sorry, I don't think so. Ok, feel free to name this capitalism, I name this corporatism, because this is about a very strong connection between a few big corporations and the government. It is the thing Lenin has named state-monopolistic capitalism or so.

It contradicts your point. I did not argue about different variants of regulation, but about the presence or absence of regulations.

But there has not been such an animal like an absence of regulation, nor in the time before the New Deal, nor in the Greenspan time. It is, of course, an old trick of the left, and of the government in general, to impose regulations, and, if they fail (as they usually do) to blame the absence of regulations for this and to impose even more serious regulations. In "Organized Crime" Di Lorenzo gives in chap. 34 a long list of what was regulated also during the Greenspan time.

Not if you know what "socialist" means in the outside world. But after our adventures with "capitalist", we have to make inquiries here - just what do mean by that word, "socialist", when you use it?

The classical, Soviet time definition of socialism with no private ownership of means of production and no free market at all is out. So actually I think every front has its own definition of socialism, and would not bother about the details. The general trend would be more state regulation, more rigorous state regulation, more state ownership, more taxes, more rights for labor unions means more socialism. But what really is socialism? Here, there will be a lot of differences in different parts of the left like between the Popular Front and the Peoples Front of Judea from the Life of Brian.

We long ago established - as a high probability - that you were incapable of making accurate statements about my ideology. You don't know what it is. So your estimates of its strength are kind of silly.

As silly as to mingle the Popular Front with the Peoples Front of Judea.

But regardless: you are not limited to having a discussion with me, so none of my ideology prevents you from making accurate comparisons of the quality of health care delivered by socialist vs corporatist systems. The field is wide open for you here, and my presence is no excuse for failure.

Of course, it is as open as that of making accurate comparisons of the Popular Front and the Peoples Front of Judea. The problem is that these differences are of no big interest for me, comparable to those between reft and light. They all want more power to the state. To find out what is less evil, less harmful is, of course, also important, in particular if one has to decide where to live. But this is a highly subjective evaluation, and depends not on libertarian ideas, but on specific interests and the personal situation. Say, if you are a woman, it would be not a good idea to emigrate to Saudi Arabia. Or if you are gay to Uganda. If you are rich enough you may prefer a corrupt state.

Let's begin by noticing that in comparison with socialist setups your expectation is contradicted by observed reality: the US does not provide care to the poor (of any quality) at a lower price than any socialist setup on the planet. The US has the highest priced care on the planet for all its citizens - not just the rich.

The point being? I see no contradiction. You consistently ignore that I make no absolute but relative claims, "lower quality for lower price". Don't forget, for the very poor all what matters is not the price, but what is provided for free. I would not expect if this is more in the US than, say, in Germany, but who knows. Oh, I see, you know:

The standard health care provided by at least two dozen socialist setups we can name is higher quality than the standard health care provided to US citizens.

The point being? If there is such an animal as "standard health care", we have an at least partially socialist health care system. Because on a free market there are no standards. This is not uncommon in corporatist societies too, it is a nice idea for the insurance providers to have obligatory insurance, which, then, defines some standard. But this is, then, what is for the poor. Which is, as I have explained, to expected to be of low quality. So, what is the point to compare two things which I expect to be of low quality above?

And this is relevant, because this is a large and growing burden on the entire US economy.

It may be relevant for you. For me it is completely irrelevant. Because I will never visit the US even for vacation. In fact, all I can hope for is that this will raise even higher - because this would mean less money for murdering innocent citizens around the world and destroying other countries.

 

[iceaura]

They are also capitalist entities. But their power is much greater than for purely capitalist entities, because of their political power through the lobbies as well as all the related methods of influencing politicians.

They are purely capitalist entities. Rich people often have political power, and capitalist entities often gain many advantages thereby. That's one of the many ways in which capitalism must be regulated and capitalists restrained if you want the benefits of - say - free market exchange. Game Theory 101, Nash Equilibria, even Adam Smith struggled with this complex and critical issue.

But there has not been such an animal like an absence of regulation, - -

There have been many examples of unregulated markets. They are commonly illustrations of the need for regulation - they are disasters, minor and major. If you require all of society and the world to be unregulated before you recognize an absence of regulation anywhere within it, you will never be able to analyze or discuss these real world examples of what theory predicts.

So actually I think every front has its own definition of socialism, and would not bother about the details.
- - -
The problem is that these differences are of no big interest for me, comparable to those between reft and light. They all want more power to the state.

So the word "socialism" is meaningless when you use it. That agrees with my assessment of your postings. But why do you expect people to think you are making sense when you use admittedly meaningless terms?

The point being? I see no contradiction. You consistently ignore that I make no absolute but relative claims, "lower quality for lower price".

I quoted your claim: "The statement about socialist health care requires similar corrections, by the way. The standard health care, provided to everybody, will be low quality." That claim is contradicted by observable reality.
Of course the claim is meaningless if the word "socialist" is meaningless.

The point being? If there is such an animal as "standard health care", we have an at least partially socialist health care system. Because on a free market there are no standards.

The comparison was between corporatist and socialist health care setups - that was your specification and your terminology. And there exist perfectly good standards one can use to compare any health care system - from free market to totalitarian communist. A comparison between corporate capitalist and socialist in a modern industrial economy is comparatively easy, because they both keep records.

So, what is the point to compare two things which I expect to be of low quality above?

Because you can discover that your expectations are contradicted by reality, and nonsense in theory; and thereby discover both opportunity and motive to correct them.

It may be relevant for you. For me it is completely irrelevant. Because I will never visit the US even for vacation.

Nothing on this forum is relevant to your vacations.

 

[joepistole]

Truth is of course not nonsense, but what you name truth is nonsense.

LOL...well you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth again. You have and you continue to summarily and without merit dismiss truth as NATO and now "nonsense". You can''t handle the truth, hence your habitual dismissing of verifiable facts.

I want to decide myself about my risk taking, and don't need the help of some government. Safety is not for free, so, even if the regulation really forbids only unsafe things (which only sheeple like joepistole believe) this leads to increasing prices.

You are contradicting yourself once again. In your previous post, you admitted government provided value through regulation. Now you are once again contradicting yourself. What you are now arguing is just because something is good, have value, we shouldn't use it because it might be abused. I guess you need to tell your beloved Putin he needs to surrender his weapons because weapons can be misused in order to be ideologically consistent.

Yes, of course, based on data about some transfers to some accounts somewhere ;-) And, of course, based on input from the industry, from the lobby which explains which regulation would harm the competitors in the most serious way.

Oh, then you need to prove it. But as with all your other assertions, you cannot. Because you are just pulling stuff out of your derriere. As you have been repeatedly told, the western world doesn't operate like you beloved Mother Russia. You are once again ignoring the fact that your beloved Mother Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption itself is a drag on economic development and it is one reason why Mother Russia remains a backwater country.

The people, of course, want safer cars and so on. So why not leave them the choice? Why behave as if the government knows better what is safe? Once you allow this, you behave like sheeple. The Russians are, in this relation, not much better. There is also far too much regulation in Russia.

Again, this isn't Mother Russia. People do have choices. No one is denying people choices, except for one thing. They don't have the right to endanger others. If you want to buy an unsafe car, there are no rules saying you cannot do so. If you want to drive that car on private property, you can do that also. What you cannot do is drive that unsafe car on public land and in doing so endanger others.

In the West, we have democracies, the elected representatives of the people make the laws. If people objected, they have the ability to change the laws. Just because they enact laws you don't like, it doesn't make them sheeple. Just because they enact laws to protect third parties, it doesn't make them sheeple, it makes them proactive rather than reactive.

Because in 90% of the cases they are irrelevant. And sometimes they cause even more harm. Modern cars are very safe for the car drivers, but if they hit a pedestrian or a bicycle they can cause much more harm because the speed will be greater - because the speed one drives depends on the own feeling of security, one tends to drive faster in safe cars.

Oh, so you have proof that in 90% external costs are irrelevant or are you once again inventing "facts"? Obviously, you are once again lying.

LOL, you really believe fairy tales about people making laws? In a world where laws are made by politicians in cooperation with lobbies, and 99% of the laws and regulations people do not even know?

Well, outside your beloved Mother Russia, it isn't a fairy tale. People do have a role in government. They really to elect officials who are accountable to them. If people dislike a law, they can force their representatives to change it. If they want a law, they can force their elected officials to make one. That's how it works outside your beloved Mother Russia.

And why would anyone need to know 99% of the laws or want to know 99% of all laws and regulations? Why would the average citizen need to know all the laws and regulations? No one knows 99% of virtually anything. I couldn't, and probably most people couldn't, name 99% of the stuff they own. So why should they know 99% of all laws and regulations? No one knows, that's why we have books, documents, and databases.

But insurance could, at least in a free market, make much better premiums for those who accept proactive measures.

You are repeating yourself. Insurance isn't foolproof. As previously pointed out to you, it's only as good as the insurer. And as previously pointed out to you, premiums are created by insurers not "free markets" and based on a number of factors with risk being chief among them. As previously and repeatedly pointed out to you insurance is a reactive remedy. A loss must be sustained before insurance can be used as a remedy. Someone must be injured before insurance becomes relevant. As I have said repeatedly now, Libertarianism by its very nature, requires people to first be injured. Regulations exist to prevent people from being injured.

And the government wasn't. And with a really free market, there would have been no Great Recession. There would be many smaller and shorter recessions, one for every stupid idea which reaches the masses and leads to a bubble, where all those who believed into the stupid but fashionable idea would loose depending on their investment, and nothing else, thus, only a quite short recession.

That's just not consistent with reality as evidenced by the graph below.

That's why reasonable people choose some arbiters, for the case of conflicts with their contracts.

Obviously you have never been to arbitration. Reasonable people choose arbitrators they believe will be sympathetic to their cause. Arbitrators are also businesses. They want repeat business too. Who forces litigants to choose an arbitrator?

And the sheeple are, instead, obliged to submit to the decisions of the watchdogs of those with the big guns, known as judges of the courts of the state.

LOL, you don't even know how much time I have spend in Russia, and how much, in comparison, in the Western world.

LOL. I have a look at the defense budgets, and can compare the results. The result is that 1\$ in the Russian defense budget gives much better results than 1\$ in the American budget. I don't think this happens because Americans are stupid or so, there are enough clever guys in the American weapon factories, they have the money to buy the best specialists from around the world. So. sorry, there is only one explanation, namely a much higher corruption rate in this particular domain.

The state has the weapons. Your state rule is the rule of the jungle, the state wins because the state has the weapons, and the sheeple have a place in FEMA camps if they object.

Not sure about the American use of "wealthy", but I would name the upper 20% wealthy, not? Whatever, the point is that state-enforced insurance of bank accounts up to 250 000\$ for each banking account is a clear redistribution from poor to rich. For this point it would be already sufficient if the upper limit would be the average banking account (instead of his household worth, which is usually much more) of the median. Because anyway the rich would get the limit, the poor without a banking account would get nothing.

Aside for getting your facts wrong yet again, the Western world isn't like your beloved Mother Russia. It is much less corrupt. As has been proven to you time and time again, your beloved Mother Russia is one of the most corrupt countries on the face of the planet. That's not how the Western world operates. Ironically, the "sheeple" are people like you who tolerate and enable corruption.

You fantasy is irrelevant.

Except it isn't a fantasy. It's one of the many realities you like to ignore. You cannot point to a single successful libertarian society, and it hasn't been for a lack of trying. Several attempts have been made to create Utopian libertarian societies and they have all failed. If you can point to a single successful libertarian society, now is the time to do it.

 

[Schmelzer]

They are purely capitalist entities. Rich people often have political power, and capitalist entities often gain many advantages thereby. That's one of the many ways in which capitalism must be regulated and capitalists restrained if you want the benefits of - say - free market exchange. Game Theory 101, Nash Equilibria, even Adam Smith struggled with this complex and critical issue.

It is clear that rich people have more possibilities to buy more and better weapons to rob and murder other people. They can do this directly, or indirectly (bribing whose who own the weapons to do the job). Indeed, a triviality.

This does not mean that the society remains capitalistic (in the libertarian meaning), if they use this possibilities to rob and murder. Once they do this, successfully (that means, without being penalized for robbery and murder) we have already a different society.

I hope that you understand that there is such a difference, and that one, therefore, wants to have different names for these two quite different societies, not? Ok, I'm a nominalist, and don't care about which names are used, as long as they are not obvious attempts of name-calling, so how would you name the two societies - the one with safe private ownership and freedom of contract, and the other one where the lobbies of the rich impose "regulations" in their own favor as they like, which is equivalent to paying the state for robbing in their favor.

There have been many examples of unregulated markets. They are commonly illustrations of the need for regulation - they are disasters, minor and major.

They will be presented in such a way in paid public relation campaigns by those who want this "regulation" very much to get rid of their competitors. Feel free to believe such cheating.

If you require all of society and the world to be unregulated before you recognize an absence of regulation anywhere within it, you will never be able to analyze or discuss these real world examples of what theory predicts.

I do not have such requirements. But in a situations where, as I suppose you know, Austrian economists blame the state regulation which already existed before the New Deal to have caused the Great recession, and the New Deal itself for transforming this recession into a catastrophic Great Depression, a fantasy world without any regulation before the New Deal or the removal of some parts of the New Deal is, again, without any regulation, is nothing I would take seriously.

I have to admit that the whole issue would be very difficult to decide, even if you would be a neutral, not prejudiced scientist on the search of truth. The problem is that it is very difficult to find out which part of the whole set of regulations (today not law books, but cupboards of law books) have the catastrophic consequences. What looks like a big deregulation can make things even worse - because the really harmful sentence remains, but the big chapter which mitigates the most harmful consequences have been removed.

But the idea to discuss this with fanatics like you is even less attractive.

So the word "socialism" is meaningless when you use it. That agrees with my assessment of your postings. But why do you expect people to think you are making sense when you use admittedly meaningless terms?

I do not see such a subdivision into "meaningful" and "meaningless" terms. Terms have a meaning, and this meaning is always in some aspects certain, in other aspects uncertain. When I use uncertain terms, I try to use them in such a way that the sentence as a whole has a clear enough meaning.

For example, I have claimed that more state ownership, more state power, more regulation means more socialism. This is certainly not a precise definition of socialism. It is nonetheless a property of socialism, and one where I expect the Popular Front will not much disagree with the Peoples Front of Judea. And in this sense I can use "socialism" to make meaningful sentences.

I quoted your claim: "The statement about socialist health care requires similar corrections, by the way. The standard health care, provided to everybody, will be low quality." That claim is contradicted by observable reality.

Really? You have compared it with some US "standard". AFAIK there is no standard which forces the rich to use that standard, even if they can buy something better, so that means, you have compared it with some "standard" for the poor. Which is, IMHO, also low quality. Lower or higher than the other, socialist low quality? I have not made any claim about this. So, again, what is the point of comparing two things I think are low quality above?

The following answer is also not satisfactory:

Because you can discover that your expectations are contradicted by reality, and nonsense in theory; and thereby discover both opportunity and motive to correct them.

Given that I have no expectations about what is better - the socialist standard for everybody except the nomenclatura, or the corporatist one for the sheeple - I cannot discover anything about these nonexisting entities.

And there exist perfectly good standards one can use to compare any health care system - from free market to totalitarian communist.

You think so? I don't.

 

[Schmelzer]

In your previous post, you admitted government provided value through regulation.

No. Through preserving private ownership and some service to enforce contracts, it provides some value. Many libertarians argue that it provides less value than libertarian security firms would, and I argue that a modern, internet-based reputational system would provide contract enforcement much better, but this is a different question. Similarly, by accident some government regulation may also provide some value. But this does not mean that I accept that regulation, in general, provides value.

What you are now arguing is just because something is good, have value, we shouldn't use it because it might be abused.

No. Regulation is bad in general. Even if it sometimes may have positive side effects.

These positive side effects may be reached by insurance companies on a free market in a much better way, as part of the contracts they offer to their customers. For the customers, once they accept the contract, they have the same effects like a similar regulation. So, sloppily one can name them "regulations". But for those who do not accept them, they have no effect at all. This makes these insurance contract fundamentally different from state regulations.

No one is denying people choices, except for one thing. They don't have the right to endanger others.

Tell this all the people in US prison for using drugs and downloading porn and so on.

In the West, we have democracies, the elected representatives of the people make the laws. If people objected, they have the ability to change the laws. Just because they enact laws you don't like, it doesn't make them sheeple. Just because they enact laws to protect third parties, it doesn't make them sheeple, it makes them proactive rather than reactive.

Feel free to believe the fairy tales about people making laws. Tell them your preschool children, because once they come to school they will be clever enough to reject them together with those about Santa Claus.

And why would anyone need to know 99% of the laws or want to know 99% of all laws and regulations?

Because this is an obligatory part of a civilized society. Everybody should be able to know all what he is obliged to follow. A cupboard of laws makes this de facto impossible. Thus, a society with such a cupboard of laws is uncivilized.

That's just not consistent with reality as evidenced by the graph below.

The graph is irrelevant, because it is a graph about some highly regulated society. All the time highly regulated. My claim was about unregulated vs. regulated.

Obviously you have never been to arbitration. Reasonable people choose arbitrators they believe will be sympathetic to their cause. Arbitrators are also businesses. They want repeat business too. Who forces litigants to choose an arbitrator?

If it is an arbitrator worth to be named arbitrator, nobody. Maybe statists use different names, but for me an arbitrator is only an arbitrator if above sides agree about choosing him, without any force. In my proposal for a reputational system, this is part of the game - the parties have to agree about the arbitrator at the time of signing the contract, and it is only the volitionally accepted arbitrator (with signature of the party) who is allowed to sign an entry in the black list of contract violators.

I know that some states now force people to "accept" some "arbitrators" assigned by the state, but I don't care about such Newspeak.

Once you don't believe that the West is corrupt at least in the sector of military spendings, how do you explain that a country with 1/12 of the military budget of the US, with less military budget than Britain, or Germany + France, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures is able to finance the Syrian engagement out of its budget without problems, reach there much better results than US + a lot of allies, in comparison with the funny memories about France running out of bombs and crying for help after a quite short Libyan bombing campaign, and leading to the complete agreement in all Western media that without the US support the whole EU taken together would be a cheap victim to the Russian military?

I would guess that drinking vodka during the development of weapons gives such results, not? Maybe Westerners are stupid because they are Westerners? Maybe Orthodox belief makes weapon developers much more powerful?

If you can point to a single successful libertarian society, now is the time to do it.

Almost all tribes living around the world have not been states in the usual meaning, but were, essentially, libertarian. States have started to exist only when there have appeared towns with a population around 10 000.

 

[joepistole]

No. Through preserving private ownership and some service to enforce contracts, it provides some value. Many libertarians argue that it provides less value than libertarian security firms would, and I argue that a modern, internet-based reputational system would provide contract enforcement much better, but this is a different question. Similarly, by accident some government regulation may also provide some value. But this does not mean that I accept that regulation, in general, provides value.


No. Regulation is bad in general. Even if it sometimes may have positive side effects.


These positive side effects may be reached by insurance companies on a free market in a much better way, as part of the contracts they offer to their customers. For the customers, once they accept the contract, they have the same effects like a similar regulation. So, sloppily one can name them "regulations". But for those who do not accept them, they have no effect at all. This makes these insurance contract fundamentally different from state regulations.

You need to figure out your inconsistencies. You admit government regulation has value and in the next statement you deny it. You need to figure out what it is you believe. The fact is regulation is on the whole good. That’s why every society has regulated its residents in some forum or fashion. Regulation would not have survived evolution, if it were not so. Societies and regulations have evolved over time. As societies have become more and more complex the need for regulation has grown. Regulation spells out the rules of the road. Without regulation, there would be chaos. It gets back to that old 2nd law of thermodynamics and the fact your beliefs are in opposition to the laws of the universe.

Tell this all the people in US prison for using drugs and downloading porn and so on.


Feel free to believe the fairy tales about people making laws. Tell them your preschool children, because once they come to school they will be clever enough to reject them together with those about Santa Claus.

Well outside Mother Russia, they aren’t fairy tales. Additionally, people can and do legally download porn in the US and most other countries. Porn is very easily available. People are jailed for porn with one exception child porn. We have been down this road before. You have and continue to advocate for child porn, and you don’t seem to understand that child porn is abusive to children. Condoning and supporting commerce in child porn increases the incentives to abuse children. We have had this discussion many times. You don’t see child porn has harmful to children.


Which brings me to my larger point; you don’t have the right to endanger or harm others – hence the need for regulation.

Because this is an obligatory part of a civilized society. Everybody should be able to know all what he is obliged to follow. A cupboard of laws makes this de facto impossible. Thus, a society with such a cupboard of laws is uncivilized.

Well here is the thing, 99% of the laws and regulations don’t affect every citizen. How many people design cars? How many people build restaurants? How many people remediate hazardous waste? If people work in those industries, they would need to know the applicable laws. But if they don’t work in those industries, why would they need to know all those laws? They don’t. You were asked to prove your assertion. You are yet again obfuscating. You haven’t proven your assertion.

The graph is irrelevant, because it is a graph about some highly regulated society. All the time highly regulated. My claim was about unregulated vs. regulated.

Unfortunately, that’s all too typical of you. You summarily and without merit dismiss all evidence you find inconvenient. At least this time you didn’t call it NATO propaganda. If you looked closely, you would have noticed the time period spanned a period in which regulation was almost nonexistent and into the modern era where society has become increasingly regulated. As regulation increased, the periods of economic prosperity became more frequent and longer and the periods of economic recession became fewer and less severe.


That’s another of those many unpleasant facts you like to ignore.

If it is an arbitrator worth to be named arbitrator, nobody. Maybe statists use different names, but for me an arbitrator is only an arbitrator if above sides agree about choosing him, without any force. In my proposal for a reputational system, this is part of the game - the parties have to agree about the arbitrator at the time of signing the contract, and it is only the volitionally accepted arbitrator (with signature of the party) who is allowed to sign an entry in the black list of contract violators.


I know that some states now force people to "accept" some "arbitrators" assigned by the state, but I don't care about such Newspeak.

Again, arbitrators are not without a bias. They are not above bias. There are financial incentives for them to favor one side over the other. If you really believe your stuff, you must be incredibly naïve. Additionally, in a free society, there is no force which requires one party to submit to arbitration or to obey the ruling of an arbitrator.

Once you don't believe that the West is corrupt at least in the sector of military spendings, how do you explain that a country with 1/12 of the military budget of the US, with less military budget than Britain, or Germany + France, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures is able to finance the Syrian engagement out of its budget without problems, reach there much better results than US + a lot of allies, in comparison with the funny memories about France running out of bombs and crying for help after a quite short Libyan bombing campaign, and leading to the complete agreement in all Western media that without the US support the whole EU taken together would be a cheap victim to the Russian military?


I would guess that drinking vodka during the development of weapons gives such results, not? Maybe Westerners are stupid because they are Westerners? Maybe Orthodox belief makes weapon developers much more powerful?

Well here is the thing, military spending has absolutely nothing to do with corruption. The fact is Russia has been repeatedly found to be one of the most corrupt nations on the planet. That has nothing to do with military spending.


Additionally, Putin’s military is a dilapidated piece of crap. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you, his technology is old poorly copied versions of Western technologies. More than 25% of his cruise missiles missed their target, falling significantly short of their targets. Putin flew a few of his antiquated airplanes into a 4th world country and dropped a few dumb bombs and in the process killed hundreds of Russians and lost Russian aircraft. He has put his nation into a deep long lasting depression. That’s not a success story outside of your beloved Mother Russia, and he has very little, if anything, to show for it. He has further denigrated his reputation in the civilized world and disgraced Mother Russia.

Almost all tribes living around the world have not been states in the usual meaning, but were, essentially, libertarian. States have started to exist only when there have appeared towns with a population around 10 000.

The unfortunate fact for you is in the thousands of years humans have been on the planet, you cannot point to a single libertarian success story, and it hasn’t been for a lack of trying.

 

[iceaura]

This does not mean that the society remains capitalistic (in the libertarian meaning)

The corporations remain capitalist. We were talking about the corporations, remember?

When I use uncertain terms, I try to use them in such a way that the sentence as a whole has a clear enough meaning.

For example, I have claimed that more state ownership, more state power, more regulation means more socialism

That's clear enough, and obviously silly. Monarchies and fascisms, for example, are not socialist governments. Authoritarian is not synonymous with socialist (fascist and feudal and plutocratic and oligarchic and kleptocratic and colonial and imperial entities often feature heavy regulation by powerful States). And so forth.
The recommendation is that you adhere more closely to the standard meanings of words in the language you employ, so that other people are not led astray. I would never have guessed that corporations were not capitalist in your world, for example, if you had not told me. Or that you would regard robbery and murder as impossible under capitalism.

so how would you name the two societies - the one with safe private ownership and freedom of contract, and the other one where the lobbies of the rich impose "regulations" in their own favor as they like, which is equivalent to paying the state for robbing in their favor.

Not enough information. You could have anything from a tribal clanship to Stalinist totalitarian communism there. Certainly they could both be capitalist, or both be socialist, or one each (either one) - is that what you were asking?

I do not have such requirements. But in a situations where, as I suppose you know, Austrian economists blame the state regulation which already existed before the New Deal to have caused the Great recession, and the New Deal itself for transforming this recession into a catastrophic Great Depression, a fantasy world without any regulation before the New Deal or the removal of some parts of the New Deal is, again, without any regulation, is nothing I would take seriously.

Your habit of deciding what not to take seriously based on whatever you find you can't handle with your preconceptions is nothing you need to actually post. We are familiar with it. Just leave a blank.

When you have run your circle out, recall that the observation was the crash of the unregulated Japanese banking system.

Given that I have no expectations about what is better - the socialist standard for everybody except the nomenclatura, or the corporatist one for the sheeple - I cannot discover anything about these nonexisting entities.

If your expectations for socialist vs corporatist health care don't exist any more, then the discussion of them ends here.

"And there exist perfectly good standards one can use to compare any health care system - from free market to totalitarian communist."
You think so? I don't.

So your claim of lower quality for socialist setups is without any possible basis in reality.

 

[Schmelzer]

The corporations remain capitalist. We were talking about the corporations, remember?

So, fine. No problem.

That's clear enough, and obviously silly. Monarchies and fascisms, for example, are not socialist governments.

Of course, and from my rule it does not follow at all that they have to be.

The recommendation is that you adhere more closely to the standard meanings of words in the language you employ, so that other people are not led astray.

Fine. But why should I care about the meaning of words for some left sectarians?

I would never have guessed that corporations were not capitalist in your world, for example, if you had not told me.

I have not told you so.

Or that you would regard robbery and murder as impossible under capitalism.

As usually, I do not, and you have yet another time distorted what I have said.

Too much distortions to continue the discussion. Have a nice day.

You need to figure out your inconsistencies. You admit government regulation has value and in the next statement you deny it. You need to figure out what it is you believe.

That you are unable to grasp quite simple and clear statements is your problem.

I have never admitted that government regulation has, in general, value. It is, instead, in general harmful.

Of course, even things which are in general harmful may have in some particular cases positive consequences. Fortunately, these positive consequences can be reached also in other ways, without the - in general harmful - government regulation, namely as part of free contracts with insurance companies, which will offer lower premiums for those who accept some regulation of their own behavior - regulations which really decrease the risks, thus, really leads to economies for the insurance companies.

But if they don’t work in those industries, why would they need to know all those laws?

Because these laws are obligatory also for those who don't work in those industries. If you violate a rule of some of those regulations

The classical example: By the very idea of a civilized law, all what a German citizen has to know for not ending in jail as long as he is in Germany should be part of the German penal law code, the StGB. In fact, a large number of prison inmates has not violated any article of the StGB, but are nonetheless in prison. Why? They have violated some other law, the "Gesetz über den Verkehr mit Betäubungsmitteln (Betäubungsmittelgesetz - BtMG)". Betäubungsmittel means anesthetic. So, a regulation about the transport of anesthetics. Do you have to know the content of a law named "Law about traffic with anesthetics" or so? You have to, because this is the law where the German variant of the drug war is hidden. By the way, not from the start, the relevant paragraphs are §29 and §30.

Well here is the thing, military spending has absolutely nothing to do with corruption.

LOL. Military spending is the ideal place for corruption. If a lot of money is spend for other things, like infrastructure, the people can see what has been created with these money. This imposes some boundaries for corruption. But with weapons the situation is quite different. They are stored in places not accessible to the public, those who have access to them are part of a very strong hierarchy completely controlled by the state, they are usually not really used, and even if they are used, the details of the use (and, in particular, their failure) is largely hidden from the public.

Superior to military spending as a place for corruption is, probably, only Federal Reserve.