List of Obama's Broken Promises

[Halifirien]

Funny, it almost sounds like you're implying Obama's supporters don't have principles that would cause them to vote for him.

 

[Trippyhippy]

There are two values that are sadly lacking in this country and they are integrity and personal responsibility. The fact is that almost all politicians continue to show that they have neither.

What are you gonna do? Elect Ron Paul to do everything?

 

[Dejavu]

No that is obviously not possible but the fact is that politicians like him are what we do need.

 

[Tyrath]

That one person was just an example, hell TV shows still spoof Clinton on it.

It's like you guys are waiting for Jesus to run for president or something, shit even then you'd find something wrong.

I really don't see why you think that would be such an amazing thing

 

[Elemmire]

I agree with give him enough time, but I think it's good if people remind him OF all his promises through-out his time in office so there's a "pestering" that gets it done XD

 

[Zoolander]

A lot of those promises are things that are going to take a lot of work and time to accomplish. Sorry, but you don't just instantly get rid of earmarks and pork. Obama doesn't have any control over that shit unless he wants to ensure that no bill ever gets passed. Its called compromise. He wants to get his agenda to get a fast start and in order to do that he needs to have congress on-board and working in a timely manner. Sometimes you guys talk about this stuff like you are under some kind of assumption that Obama writes this shit himself. News flash, the Legislative branch is more powerful than the Executive.

Over time he can work to reduce these things and slowly change some of the culture of Washington, but you are delusional if you think that he should or could have already done a lot of those changes.

 

[Mattaru]

Who cares who works for AIG they are a bunch of idiots, it should have been allowed to fail and if it did fail they wouldn't have gotten thier bonuses anyways.

Instead we prop up bad businesses, try to change the way they do business, and wonder why we continue to have bad businesses when we encourage them... same reason we have illegal immigration problems.

So you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, or was that just a giant whoosh on your part?

Can you do me a favor and figure out that when you are arguing something, and some one makes a response, you respond back in kind to them - so you know it progresses instead of just bringing up another new argument.

 

[Dejavu]

So you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, or was that just a giant whoosh on your part?

Can you do me a favor and figure out that when you are arguing something, and some one makes a response, you respond back in kind to them - so you know it progresses instead of just bringing up another new argument.

Yes i have read it and just because i have read it doesnt mean that i remember it well or worship it like most people seem to think that all libertarians do. TBH i ignored your post for the most part because i thought that it was off topic and insignificant to the actual thread which was about Obama and his issues with honesty.

First off i dont understand why you decided to number them the way that you did and it really makes no sense to me.

1. John Galt probably worked for AIG.

Not sure why you included this line and if this is the woosh that you are referring to the i guess that it is a large woosh and please explain why. The fact is that the regulations that are in place gave the businesses a zone that they considered safe and took the risk assessment out of their hands. If they were able to assess their own risk there are two options... take on too much risk and fail (that sucks alot of people are out of a job) or play it safe.

Companies fail and better companies are created in their wake, it is a concept called creative destruction.

If you are arguing that the employees of AIG were looking out for their own interests and that is why they paid the massive bonuses and ran the company into the ground, then my question would be how is it in their best interests to run the company into the ground if they were in fact allowed to fail like all libertarians that i know say should have happened. This is the kind of shit that is not only allowed but by moral hazard encouraged.

2. -Neither do I, lets go back to the 18th century where we could be afforded such a luxury.

I detect sarcasm... What is wrong with a truly limited government has the world really changed to the point where the market can no longer regulate things? Beyond that if the market cannot control things why do we believe that a bunch of people can make these decisions who are most of the time not even involved in the in the industry that they are trying to regulate. Most of the time it turns into a case of the blind leading the blind.

-What is a big government? Is it like the old adage about a duck?

I have no idea which adage you are in fact referring to... the only adage that i know involving a duck is, "it if quacks like a duck and walks like a duck its a duck". If this is what you are referring to then i am again confused.

Big government to me on the federal level is anything that exceeds Courts, military, and police. The government should have no place in anything else. I will always make a better decision about what is good for me than someone else can.

-Is there any compromise in this ideal?

For the most part no... compromise on this particular subject is like driving down the middle of the road because you couldn't decide which lane to drive in. It turns out being worse than either option alone.

-When did John Locke write the Second Treatise of Government, which I will say lays the groundwork for Western concept of a democracy in tandem with really basic free-market theory held by Libertarianism, and Minarchism to a similar degree? How much change in thought has occurred since then?

1688

hmm.. i believe you are referring to life, liberty and property. Sure a lot has changed since then but is an idea wrong solely because it is old? I mean we all say we love democracy and that was created in the 5th century BC how is that not wrong then by your reasoning.

3.-Why?

Why what? I really dont understand your line of questions or how they at all relate to the topic seeing as most of them were not even questions. It appears to me that you just like to make obscure references in hopes that the other person will just feel overpowered and concede to the power of your massive brain.

 

[Halifirien]

I will have new blood in admin. but names Panetta to CIA..........Broken

That guy's totally right. Nothing has changed at the CIA under Obama and Panetta. Oh, wait..

C.I.A. Closing Secret Overseas Sites for Terror Detainees

WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency announced on Thursday that it will no longer use contractors to conduct interrogations, and that it is decommissioning the secret overseas sites where for years it held high-level Al Qaeda prisoners.

In a statement to the agency's work force, the director, Leon E. Panetta, said that the secret detention facilities were no longer in operation, but he suggested that security and maintenance have been continued at the sites at taxpayers' expense.

"I have directed our agency personnel to take charge of the decommissioning process, and have further directed that the contracts for site security be promptly terminated," Mr. Panetta said. "It is estimated that our taking over site security will result in savings of up to $4 million."
...

In his first week in office, President Obama banned coercive interrogation and ordered the closing of the agency's detention program, though the agency can still hold prisoners for short periods.

Mr. Panetta's statement, along with a classified letter about interrogation policy that he sent Thursday to the Senate and House intelligence oversight committees, underscored the new administration's sharp break with one of the most controversial programs of the Bush administration.

 

[Zaltana]

Dejavu you seem to be making the mistakes that the devout conservatives(who probably made that list) & liberals have done for years. look for reasons to bash the other parties just to try to sway people to yours.

the man hasn't been in office for half a year yet. do you remember what he said in his opening address? he said that all the challenges that he will face may not even be met in 1 single term. he knew he wouldnt be able to fix things right away. and he's not going to sabotage himself by saying he can. the attitude you portray is the one he feels has driven a wedge in america and poisoned polotics to the point that parties care about themselves more then the country they are supposed to govern. he feels we need to move past it, and needless to say i think he's right.

 

[Raesvelg]

Big government to me on the federal level is anything that exceeds Courts, military, and police. The government should have no place in anything else. I will always make a better decision about what is good for me than someone else can.

Considering that in the other thread you were arguing that the average American is too stupid/ignorant to realize when the government is trying to do something as fundamentally obvious as overturn the Constitution, this gives me a great opportunity to turn your words back on you.

What makes you so special? How are you different in some fashion from people who you insist are incapable of drawing their own conclusions from the available facts?

To expand: Nothing that exceeds Courts, Military, and Police eh? What about immigration? Does that fall under the category of police? How about infrastructure? Public goods won't manufacture themselves, and practically by definition no corporate entity will create them. How will this military be funded? Charitable contributions?

I can go on, but in general I find the Libertarian party platform in general to be so far divorced from reality that reality has issued a 300 foot restraining order against it.

 

[Mattaru]

Yes i have read it and just because i have read it doesnt mean that i remember it well or worship it like most people seem to think that all libertarians do. TBH i ignored your post for the most part because i thought that it was off topic and insignificant to the actual thread which was about Obama and his issues with honesty.

First off i dont understand why you decided to number them the way that you did and it really makes no sense to me.

First I think the impression that all Libertarians worship one thing or the other is the ivory-tower attitude a lot of them have about their political thought, philosophy etc. As if most of us would be Libertarian if we just somehow "got it".

If anything Libertarians seem to see the market as a type of panacea for a lot of things that the government simply impedes on things and produces nothing positive. This type of thinking is extremely essentialized, it lacks depth and its simplicity makes it easy to cater to voters - especially when it harps on individualism. I don't want to group Libertarians together - wait, nevermind - they did that themselves by making a party and ideology but I recognize the movement or whatever has differing opinions inside it.

This is not off-topic, I think what can easily be extended from this discussion is that ideology is more than willing to stretch the truth or straight out make it up in order to make everything fit nicely into its essentialized world-view.

Not sure why you included this line and if this is the woosh that you are referring to the i guess that it is a large woosh and please explain why. The fact is that the regulations that are in place gave the businesses a zone that they considered safe and took the risk assessment out of their hands. If they were able to assess their own risk there are two options... take on too much risk and fail (that sucks alot of people are out of a job) or play it safe.

Companies fail and better companies are created in their wake, it is a concept called creative destruction.

If you are arguing that the employees of AIG were looking out for their own interests and that is why they paid the massive bonuses and ran the company into the ground, then my question would be how is it in their best interests to run the company into the ground if they were in fact allowed to fail like all libertarians that i know say should have happened. This is the kind of shit that is not only allowed but by moral hazard encouraged.

The whoosh is that John Galt is a fictional character, and it didn't seem you picked up on that response. He is the ideal objectivist/libertarian. I say he was probably running AIG because of the extreme in self-interest that company represent nowadays.

Are you saying regulations are to blame for poor risk assessment? I'd like to see the logical connection. This does not take it out of these companies hands in how they choose to invest as long as it isn't blatantly illegal. Can you give me something less simplistic, like an analysis on how this happened from a non-biased source.

I don't disagree, that can be said about many things, the question is should changes happen in cycle of crisis? Or should crisis try and be averted by multiple actors involved. I think this is also pointing out how limited the crisis seems to be in your eyes.

Let us take as an example China. In the United States the financial crisis could lead to an increase in private savings because the risks to the long term such as losing a lot of you retirement money/money in the stock market or foreseeable unemployment, or just decreased investment in general. I don't think this is too far fetched - people spend less in crisis. When people in the US spend less on consumer goods that are imported from China, China's large export share in the economy decreases, and their GDP decreases. China's GDP growth is decreasing, by a large percentage this year. China is big, it has a lot of people. When GDP growth decreases below a certain level, which it is now a lot of people become unemployed solely because even growth around 7-8% does not create enough jobs for people. So in China in the next few years have millions upon millions of unemployed people which poses a huge economic and political hurdle. So you have populations of most states joining another 130 million or so internal migrants in China, in the cities, without jobs and not happy partially because economic crisis leads to a retarded economic growth.

Before someone says, its because China is communist!!! I will say no, China is realist, China will do whatever they can to make sure China stays together and the Party will do whatever they can to stay in power. Maybe you could say that this was the product of Deng's policy in the late 1970s and that has some affect but I'd argue growth in a core area while leaving a periphery behind is not a Chinese thing, its a capitalist thing usually. The great thing about authoritarianism is its FAST, that is mainly what the Chinese government did. (The great thing about democracy in other words is that its slow and not always efficient.)

Point being: This is crisis, and it goes beyond AIG, and personal responsibility. It destroys economies and I would choose creativity in general to creative destruction.

Concerning your last paragraph: First, I fail to see how moral hazard is as important in their calculations of their self-interest as you think it is, mainly because it seemed like for some of these people failure was not a problem. Failure is not a problem because the whole idea of a corporation is that for investors risk is limited. Risk is limited because of stakeholders, and even more so people at the top are even more limited in risk not because of government bailouts but because they aren't necessarily taking all of their money and reinvesting it into their own company. They take their profit and buy houses, cars, and invest it into other places to further diversify risk. So when that company tanks they can walk away and live off of whatever they have. That is self-interest right there, but it removes them from the other people that are affected by it in direct and indirect ways.

They saw the bailout money as a way to make another buck not as the major factor in their risk calculus that led to economic collapse....that is just far-fetched. The reason the government tried to bail out companies was to try and stop the crisis from worsening, the effects are yet to be seen with any conclusiveness. Moreover, I wouldn't argue politicians are great economists, but when elections roll around they are held accountable for something that isn't in their control a large degree and for their own political self-interest they will try to make it look like they are doing something.

I detect sarcasm... What is wrong with a truly limited government has the world really changed to the point where the market can no longer regulate things? Beyond that if the market cannot control things why do we believe that a bunch of people can make these decisions who are most of the time not even involved in the in the industry that they are trying to regulate. Most of the time it turns into a case of the blind leading the blind.

The market can regulate somethings - I guess like the flow of goods, which even then is problematic because their exists in every society systems to manage people that is often at odds because of how these goods flow and because of simply the vast amount of people on the earth compared to a couple centuries ago (largely due to the effects on living standards capitalism has created).

Politics gets involved to try and create a balancing act, which I would argue is necessary because without stability you end up being like some countries in this world no one wants to invest in because of internal strife. For instance, I think it is fairly intuitive that while capitalism can benefit a lot of people, it isn't going to benefit everyone equally (Ayn Rand may argue that is because of ability, in some cases this is true, but if we have learned in this crisis sometimes it isn't - it is not the objective constant Rand and some Libertarians think it is). This is one way interest groups, unions etc. are formed. Basically, without deliberation between groups in society crisis is imminent, these groups allow deliberation which is not always in the interest of the people at the top because for them it is not as efficient in the same way the CCP thinks writing politically opposed things is not as efficient and isn't going to make money quickly. So no matter what it will never be us, the police/military/judiciary, and the market because it simply is not balanced and if collusion happens at any level the other group is basically fucked. This is why the government has taxes, makes regulations, etc. because it is a deliberative group between many interest groups such as different classes, business, ethnic groups etc.

This why some people would tend to argue that without intervention capitalism would not cease to exist, but impossible to be a system able to function at any scale close to today because of the cycle of crisis inherent in it and vast capital asymmetries that go unchecked. For more on this read Legitimacy Crisis by Jurgen Habermas.

I have no idea which adage you are in fact referring to... the only adage that i know involving a duck is, "it if quacks like a duck and walks like a duck its a duck". If this is what you are referring to then i am again confused.

Big government to me on the federal level is anything that exceeds Courts, military, and police. The government should have no place in anything else. I will always make a better decision about what is good for me than someone else can.

That is the one I was referring to and you could not have been that confused because you gave me an answer, point was big government can be any number of things - do you just look and observe and say that seems like a big government or you know it when you see it or do you have a standard - which you do, which is extremely weak.

First, how does a court make decisions without a deliberative process to determine laws that courts are to make verdicts on, and how can those change over time without a legislative body or executive body that is able of repealing, lets say, slavery.

Who deploys the military? The court, the military itself (because we know they all act in the most objective manner). If it is the court see once again how they actually make a judgment on when it is legal to deploy them, what if they collude? What if dare I say it the court is corrupt? Will the people check it? Well maybe if their is a strong civil society, but probably not in a hyper-individualist society (for the analysis here read Etzioni or Mary-Ann Glendon on communitarian theory). If the people have to check this, will that take them away from their daily lives in order to handle constant tasks of governing via crisis and revolution? Couldn't there be a group of people we give this role to so we don't have to worry about it all the time or face certain oppression!?!?!?! WHAT WOULD WE CALL THAT I DON'T KNOW? REPRESENTATION? THIS IS A CRAZY NEW CONCEPT!!!!

Anyways, what if the police beats me, because I am black and everyone is white and the court doesn't provide justice because they are all white too. I can only rely on myself in this situation to rebel, but only the white police and military have the technology needed to make that possible so they kill me and decide "these people are just in the way anyways" and they kill all of us, so we can go about our merry white lives. This may not be in their self-interest because it leads to ongoing conflict based on constructed differences and imagined communities that puts themselves in danger down the road, but at the time it seemed like a purty good idea because the only person who knows what is good for them is them right?

What about people who obviously can't make the best decisions about themselves like children and mentally handicapped? How will these people be guaranteed some kind of safety in this world? IS IT IN THE COURTS??!?!

For the most part no... compromise on this particular subject is like driving down the middle of the road because you couldn't decide which lane to drive in. It turns out being worse than either option alone.

You are no Henry Clay sir! I would say it may be more like driving in the middle of a bridge that is over a giant pit of lava in flames (in hell) and you take the middle of the road because fuck falling of the bridge isn't going to feel to great.

1688

hmm.. i believe you are referring to life, liberty and property. Sure a lot has changed since then but is an idea wrong solely because it is old? I mean we all say we love democracy and that was created in the 5th century BC how is that not wrong then by your reasoning.

No, its wrong because John Locke bases his claims political rights are predicated on property (why would you enter into the social contract if you did not have something to protect like your property). And property is something Locke defines as something that is labored on by oneself.

In other words, if you don't have property you are shit out of luck, and moreover if the land you live on isn't seen as labored upon, you are also shit out of luck.

Point being, Locke wrote the Second Treatise of Government in order to justify things going on in Britain around the Glorious Revolution to make a case for people like him to have more power and say in the government. Fun fact: Glorious Revolution was also in 1688, could it be a coincidenceeeee?

For more fun facts: Read Michel Foucault - Discipline & Punish.

Because in the 5th C. BC democracy was for like 2% of the population at the most.

Why what? I really dont understand your line of questions or how they at all relate to the topic seeing as most of them were not even questions. It appears to me that you just like to make obscure references in hopes that the other person will just feel overpowered and concede to the power of your massive brain.

Why you believe in something so silly?

Go back to where I said "People often bend the truth to fit their ideology" or what not.

If you mean by obscure references you mean: not some dudes blog (which is beyond obscure), or not Fox News, CNN, or a major mass media news source, but instead BOOKS, BOOKS my dear Watson then you can call me obscure.

Flattery will get you nowhere Dejavu! I hope this makes you rethink or at least explore your value system more, I know every time I have a post like this it makes me do that.

 

[Javir]

...and in comes the illustrious Javir to back Dejavu's slanted point-of-view, as if no wrong was done at all.

You people are like clockwork, I swear.


I'm not, nor was I ever, saying that Deja (or you, or Busta, or any other person) is not entitled to your opinions. However, when every day a new repost of a politically-driven blog thrashing gets shoved up on QCDN's Lounge or RSI board by Dejavu, it tends to get old after a while.

The way Deja's been going on about Barack Obama and his short time as president thus far, you'd think he had hoped Obama was some kind of Messianic figure who could right all the wrongs of the world in a day, rather than expecting him to be a man doing the best with the shitstorm left over from the last administration.

What people fail to see, and I blame Dejavu for being far too blunt, is that I'm not out there directly supporting his views. Anyone who knows me and can call me a friend knows I'm notorious for playing Devil's Advocate for the underdog.

Do I understand and consider most of what he says. Yes, frankly. Much like I do what you say or others say. But the things I hate most is when people becoming bigots, thus discredit themselves, while relying on the majority to support them.

Most of my posts, typically challenge the same people Dejavu challenges because I want to understand their side. I disagree and argue with Dejavu all the time. Are there some things I agree with? sure, such as:

I guess i am strange then because i believe in voting based upon principles not what is popular and not making promises that you don't know that you can keep.

There are two values that are sadly lacking in this country and they are integrity and personal responsibility. The fact is that almost all politicians continue to show that they have neither.

Now, I am not trying to further the Libertarian agenda, like Dejavu is doing in one sense or another. As a matter of fact, I'm not really trying to push any agenda. The basic simple truth of my "illustrious" posts, is I like that someone, right or wrong is challenging the status quo and I in most cases encourage it. Has Deja been going overboard? Yes, frankly he has. Thus my response to you, I felt it equally inappropriate as your post. Two wrongs don't make a right, but hopefully it got some attention.

I'm sorry if people out there think less of me, that this is my method. They don't really know me. I was less politically active, yes, but no one should afford to not be nowadays. Do I appear to support Dejavu? Yes, I understand that. Do I agree with Dejavu, typically no. I tend towards Conservative over Liberal or Libertarian. I don't know what else to tell people.

To further indicate my beliefs with the quote from Dejavu. As an Alaskan, I voted for and adore Sara Palin. As Governor. She has full filled or explained herself for essentially every promise she made running for the office. And has done well for the state of Alaska. I'm not so pleased with her run for VP, I think she did herself a disservice in that she wasn't allowed or able to put herself in the same light. In any case, it's extremely rare to find someone who handled a political office as well as Sara has done. Not an easy task with the political climate today.


Anyhow, judge me how you will cause that's what you will do. Anyone who wants to contact me, feel free. I like getting to know people. If you choose to dislike me, because I am friends with or appear to "back up" Dejavu's view, that's fine. If you don't care enough to get to know who I am and what I'm really about, then explain why I should care.

 

[Kilorilo]

I will demand human rights for China and Tibet..

Who the fuck cares bout that ?

 

[Zoolander]

I would say lots of people do, although it kind of lost priority with the whole economic crisis, which was the case with many of the things Obama wanted to accomplish in the beginning.

 

[Skaw]

I will demand human rights for China and Tibet..

Who the fuck cares bout that ?

I'm pretty sure helping out the Chinese people is a good idea, when the Chinese government has so much money circulating in our budget. Getting in good with the People is a nice way to get in good with the government.

 

[Sirelrohir]

Nothing is going to change with the political system as long as lobbyists and special interests have their say. This is the number one threat to our "homeland security".

Just to expand a little bit. Foreign policy in regards to the mid east is determined by big oil and aipac.

Health care... insurance companies.

any sort of hot button issue has some special interest group behind its implementation or lack of implementation (gay marraige, abortion, smoking, etc)

 

[Dejavu]

Sorry this took me a few days to respond but I was in California visiting my sister for Easter and did not have time to format a proper response.

Dejavu you seem to be making the mistakes that the devout conservatives(who probably made that list) & liberals have done for years. look for reasons to bash the other parties just to try to sway people to yours.

the man hasn't been in office for half a year yet. do you remember what he said in his opening address? he said that all the challenges that he will face may not even be met in 1 single term. he knew he wouldnt be able to fix things right away. and he's not going to sabotage himself by saying he can. the attitude you portray is the one he feels has driven a wedge in america and poisoned polotics to the point that parties care about themselves more then the country they are supposed to govern. he feels we need to move past it, and needless to say i think he's right.

If you think that my goal was to bash the republicans and democrats to convince people to become libertarian then you have really missed the point of why I write all this stuff. I don’t really care what you think to be honest but my biggest problem is that people seem to follow their leaders blindly without questioning anything that they are doing. To me it is all about accountability and everyone seems to want to hold their opposition accountable but do not even consider doing the same to their own party.

Considering that in the other thread you were arguing that the average American is too stupid/ignorant to realize when the government is trying to do something as fundamentally obvious as overturn the Constitution, this gives me a great opportunity to turn your words back on you.

No I still believe that the average American is not perfect but I don’t believe that the average elected official is any better and if it comes down to making a decision for myself or having someone else make that decision for me I will make the decision for myself every time. People make bad decisions and the wonderful thing about them is that they learn from them and rarely make them again.

What makes you so special? How are you different in some fashion from people who you insist are incapable of drawing their own conclusions from the available facts?

I am not special… I am concerned like I believe everyone else should be. I don’t pretend to know all the answers and I don’t believe that I have every tried to portray myself as such. Sure I have my beliefs everyone does but the difference between myself and most other people is that I actually seek all the available facts instead of just going along the party line.

To expand: Nothing that exceeds Courts, Military, and Police eh? What about immigration? Does that fall under the category of police? How about infrastructure? Public goods won't manufacture themselves, and practically by definition no corporate entity will create them. How will this military be funded? Charitable contributions?

Apparently my use of general terms was a bit too much… Courts = method to resolve conflicts, Military = protection from foreign aggression (immigration would fall under this category), Police = protection from internal aggression. You also missed the key word in my statement where I stated that this was the extent of federal government. I believe that education, infrastructure and other public goods can be provided by the community through local and state governments. All of government including the military could be funded through excise taxes as long as the scope of government is kept at this minor level. As far as things that exceed public good like universal healthcare it would be much better handled by private insurance who try to turn a profit and anyone who cannot afford it even after private income taxes are reduced to almost zero then yes charitable contributions would take over. Although I have never met a person who feels charitable on the 15th of april.

I can go on, but in general I find the Libertarian party platform in general to be so far divorced from reality that reality has issued a 300 foot restraining order against it.

Name calling.. this seems productive.

First I think the impression that all Libertarians worship one thing or the other is the ivory-tower attitude a lot of them have about their political thought, philosophy etc. As if most of us would be Libertarian if we just somehow "got it".

Isn’t this true of every political group not just libertarians? The reason I was irritated with your comment is because it makes the assertion that the only way that anyone would be a libertarian is if they have read Rand books and that we are somehow members of a brainwashed cult and yes people of mainstream political groups have gone as far as calling Libertarians in general members of the Ayn Rand cult. Not all libertarians believe in objectivism that is like saying that all Republicans believe in everything that GWB did while he was in office which is far from true as well. Just because someone is grouped together with other people does not mean subscribe to all the same ideals.

If anything Libertarians seem to see the market as a type of panacea for a lot of things that the government simply impedes on things and produces nothing positive. This type of thinking is extremely essentialized, it lacks depth and its simplicity makes it easy to cater to voters - especially when it harps on individualism. I don't want to group Libertarians together - wait, nevermind - they did that themselves by making a party and ideology but I recognize the movement or whatever has differing opinions inside it.

What is wrong with simplicity… The market does heal all. How does it cater to voters? If something is needed it is done for a higher price if something is no longer needed the price falls. When the price of one thing falls the manufacturers of one object will start creating another in order to make a larger profit.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo Da Vinci

This is not off-topic, I think what can easily be extended from this discussion is that ideology is more than willing to stretch the truth or straight out make it up in order to make everything fit nicely into its essentialized world-view.

Exactly what is being made up in my discussion and beyond that I don’t represent anything I say as anything beyond opinion. With that in mind however… prove me wrong.

The whoosh is that John Galt is a fictional character, and it didn't seem you picked up on that response. He is the ideal objectivist/libertarian. I say he was probably running AIG because of the extreme in self-interest that company represent nowadays.

I see nothing wrong with what AIG has done recently as they are working within the confines of the system that has already been set up. Now if the system were to actually punish companies who performed poorly by allowing them to fail AIG would have 2 choices, perform sanely or fail. As long as they can perform the way that they are and not fail they might as well there is no real downside.

Are you saying regulations are to blame for poor risk assessment? I'd like to see the logical connection. This does not take it out of these companies hands in how they choose to invest as long as it isn't blatantly illegal. Can you give me something less simplistic, like an analysis on how this happened from a non-biased source.

Yes, AIG’s problems are largely due to the problems in the investment banking sector. The fact is that AIG insured the banks and therefore when all of the banks started asking for claims on their policies AIG crumbled due to the sheer amount of claims it had against it. When AIG made their policies they made them based upon default risk without considering the market risk. The reason they ignored market risk is due to the fact that all of the companies were functioning within the confines of the regulations of the market.

The banks were told that they were allowed to leverage themselves 30 to 1 and surprise because they were told that they could that became the new standard. Several people at the time stated that they did not think that this kind of leverage was safe but because it was the standard it was accepted by all who wanted to be competitive.

Now if there was no standard as to how a company was leveraged then the company would have to decide how much they would like to leverage. Some companies would be aggressive and leverage themselves to this point and others would be conservative and maybe only leverage themselves at 5 to 1 or so. Now when times are good the aggressive companies will prosper but as soon as anything turns south they will fail. The key principle to making sane decisions is the possibility of failure. If there is no perceived risk there is no reason not to be aggressive.

That is why I say that it comes down to risk assessment. Because it was standardized it made all companies overly aggressive and as soon as the market took a down turn the deleveraging crippled all the banks. Now since AIG insures all these banks against such an event they are the ones left holding the bag. If AIG were able to assess the risk of the banks there would be no way that they would treat the banks who were aggressive the same as they did the ones who were conservative. You charge people based upon perceived risk and because of the regulations that standardized risk AIG perceived the risk that these financial institutions were undertaking as much lower than they actually were.

Nothing AIG did was illegal; however, a lot of the stuff that AIG did was incompetent. They should fail but they are not by any means solely responsible for their failure.

I don't disagree, that can be said about many things, the question is should changes happen in cycle of crisis? Or should crisis try and be averted by multiple actors involved. I think this is also pointing out how limited the crisis seems to be in your eyes.

No I think the Crisis is actually a lot worse than most people here do. However I believe that the best way to handle the situation is to allow of the bad companies to fail and everyone who is left over will start over and fill the needs that are out there. The economy is not the responsibility of the government and anything that they do to try and fix it will only delay the inevitable and spend more money unnecessarily in the process.

Let us take as an example China. In the United States the financial crisis could lead to an increase in private savings because the risks to the long term such as losing a lot of you retirement money/money in the stock market or foreseeable unemployment, or just decreased investment in general. I don't think this is too far fetched - people spend less in crisis. When people in the US spend less on consumer goods that are imported from China, China's large export share in the economy decreases, and their GDP decreases. China's GDP growth is decreasing, by a large percentage this year. China is big, it has a lot of people. When GDP growth decreases below a certain level, which it is now a lot of people become unemployed solely because even growth around 7-8% does not create enough jobs for people. So in China in the next few years have millions upon millions of unemployed people which poses a huge economic and political hurdle. So you have populations of most states joining another 130 million or so internal migrants in China, in the cities, without jobs and not happy partially because economic crisis leads to a retarded economic growth.

Before someone says, its because China is communist!!! I will say no, China is realist, China will do whatever they can to make sure China stays together and the Party will do whatever they can to stay in power. Maybe you could say that this was the product of Deng's policy in the late 1970s and that has some affect but I'd argue growth in a core area while leaving a periphery behind is not a Chinese thing, its a capitalist thing usually. The great thing about authoritarianism is its FAST, that is mainly what the Chinese government did. (The great thing about democracy in other words is that its slow and not always efficient.)

The United States financial crisis hopefully will lead to increased savings. This is a good thing, capital comes from savings and we are quickly running out of capital in this country because we do not make anything anymore. China lately is seeming more capitalist than the US. They saw how Hong Kong turned out and they are taking that example and expanding it to the whole country. They are strongly authoritarian but they are not communist.

Point being: This is crisis, and it goes beyond AIG, and personal responsibility. It destroys economies and I would choose creativity in general to creative destruction.

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.” -Ronald Reagan

Concerning your last paragraph: First, I fail to see how moral hazard is as important in their calculations of their self-interest as you think it is, mainly because it seemed like for some of these people failure was not a problem. Failure is not a problem because the whole idea of a corporation is that for investors risk is limited. Risk is limited because of stakeholders, and even more so people at the top are even more limited in risk not because of government bailouts but because they aren't necessarily taking all of their money and reinvesting it into their own company. They take their profit and buy houses, cars, and invest it into other places to further diversify risk. So when that company tanks they can walk away and live off of whatever they have. That is self-interest right there, but it removes them from the other people that are affected by it in direct and indirect ways.

Moral hazard is important because if there was no safety net there would be more buffer to failure. Now suppose that you were going to an event in FFXI on your black mage. You know that you may have some hard times and may lose 2 or 3k xp during the night. Now what if FFXI stepped in and said oh well you can keep level 75 even if you lose all of your buffer do you still think that you are going to actively try and keep that buffer high enough that you wont run out… probably not. When you take away a reason to fear failure you take away the reason to avoid failure… that is why I brought up moral hazard. Investors risk is limited to the point that they are only responsible to the point that they are invested. Much like in poker you can only lose what you put in the middle.

They saw the bailout money as a way to make another buck not as the major factor in their risk calculus that led to economic collapse....that is just far-fetched. The reason the government tried to bail out companies was to try and stop the crisis from worsening, the effects are yet to be seen with any conclusiveness. Moreover, I wouldn't argue politicians are great economists, but when elections roll around they are held accountable for something that isn't in their control a large degree and for their own political self-interest they will try to make it look like they are doing something.

Risk analysis… if the reward is bigger… the willingness to take risks goes up…

The government stepped in and bailed out these companies because for years China has been heavily invested in our treasuries and investment banks. AIG was failing because of the investment banks. If we didn’t bail out AIG and the investment banks that China had invested in there is a strong possibility that they would refuse to loan us money anymore and very possibly have a larger issue such as a future physical confrontation.

Of course if we had balanced books on a federal level in the first place this wouldn’t be a problem. I believe that politicians are horrible economists and they are trying to control the uncontrollable. That is why I do believe what they should do is nothing… They may not control it but they do affect it dramatically and anytime that they do get in the way of the market they only thing they do to it is pervert it and divert resources. The problem is that in this country it is better to look ignorant rather than impotent.

The market can regulate somethings - I guess like the flow of goods, which even then is problematic because their exists in every society systems to manage people that is often at odds because of how these goods flow and because of simply the vast amount of people on the earth compared to a couple centuries ago (largely due to the effects on living standards capitalism has created).

The market will regulate everything if it is allowed to. If something is not made in sufficient quantities for demand… the price goes up and more people are willing to make it. If something is made beyond demand the price goes down and people who made it move onto other things. Anytime there is under or overproduction the price adjusts and so does the amount of people willing to produce. That’s basic economics. If you believe that the invisible hand cannot regulate the market then how do you possibly think that the government possibly can?

Politics gets involved to try and create a balancing act, which I would argue is necessary because without stability you end up being like some countries in this world no one wants to invest in because of internal strife. For instance, I think it is fairly intuitive that while capitalism can benefit a lot of people, it isn't going to benefit everyone equally (Ayn Rand may argue that is because of ability, in some cases this is true, but if we have learned in this crisis sometimes it isn't - it is not the objective constant Rand and some Libertarians think it is). This is one way interest groups, unions etc. are formed. Basically, without deliberation between groups in society crisis is imminent, these groups allow deliberation which is not always in the interest of the people at the top because for them it is not as efficient in the same way the CCP thinks writing politically opposed things is not as efficient and isn't going to make money quickly. So no matter what it will never be us, the police/military/judiciary, and the market because it simply is not balanced and if collusion happens at any level the other group is basically fucked. This is why the government has taxes, makes regulations, etc. because it is a deliberative group between many interest groups such as different classes, business, ethnic groups etc.

Capitalism isn’t meant to benefit everyone equally. If you want to be treated better by capitalism you work harder and you make it happen. That’s the funny thing is that I actually agree with Unions in theory however in practice they are far from what they should be. If it were voluntary and universally binding that would be fine but typically it is a requirement or it splits the workforce into 2 parties… Union and non-union.

In the case where employees must be union it forces you to withhold dues from your paycheck in order to pay for the union officials otherwise you will not be allowed to take the job. On the other hand if you are in the voluntary union position the unions typically get deals that are not afforded to the non union worker such as a higher pay rate or job security since typically non union people will be fired first.

This why some people would tend to argue that without intervention capitalism would not cease to exist, but impossible to be a system able to function at any scale close to today because of the cycle of crisis inherent in it and vast capital asymmetries that go unchecked. For more on this read Legitimacy Crisis by Jurgen Habermas.

Not about to read a second habermas book but I read his book “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” and I remember that he was extremely socialist. I know the basic arguments for and against socialism so if he brought up something really interesting please outline it but reading that book would be several days of wasted time imo… because translated from German books are hard reading.

That is the one I was referring to and you could not have been that confused because you gave me an answer, point was big government can be any number of things - do you just look and observe and say that seems like a big government or you know it when you see it or do you have a standard - which you do, which is extremely weak.

Honestly I asked Truegrave in vent what the hell you were talking about and that’s what he came up with after about 30 minutes of looking for something that was specifically referring to big government and not just a common adage that could be used towards anything seemingly obvious about a duck.

First, how does a court make decisions without a deliberative process to determine laws that courts are to make verdicts on, and how can those change over time without a legislative body or executive body that is able of repealing, lets say, slavery.

Court… generic term for a means to enforce the laws
Military… generic term for protection from foreign aggression
Police… generic term for protection from domestic aggression

I was defining the purpose of government not its structure… there will still be a legislative executive and judicial branch etc…

Who deploys the military? The court, the military itself (because we know they all act in the most objective manner). If it is the court see once again how they actually make a judgment on when it is legal to deploy them, what if they collude? What if dare I say it the court is corrupt? Will the people check it? Well maybe if their is a strong civil society, but probably not in a hyper-individualist society (for the analysis here read Etzioni or Mary-Ann Glendon on communitarian theory). If the people have to check this, will that take them away from their daily lives in order to handle constant tasks of governing via crisis and revolution? Couldn't there be a group of people we give this role to so we don't have to worry about it all the time or face certain oppression!?!?!?! WHAT WOULD WE CALL THAT I DON'T KNOW? REPRESENTATION? THIS IS A CRAZY NEW CONCEPT!!!!

Congress has the ability to declare and fund war, once war is declared the president is the commander of the army. Any aggressive war should not occur but anything that is a direct response to aggression by another nation should be considered. The court may be corrupt and the framers of the country understood that which is why in the declaration of independence it states

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Communitarianism to me is just another word for authoritarianism. Someone else knows better than me what I should be doing and will force me to do so… no thanks. You are muddying the difference between consent of the governed and tyranny of the majority. One issue that you are overlooking is that America is not a democracy. We are in fact a republic which means rule by law.

Representation is important because it allows people to be uninvolved in the political process if they chose to be but those who chose to be uninvolved get what they deserve.

Anyways, what if the police beats me, because I am black and everyone is white and the court doesn't provide justice because they are all white too. I can only rely on myself in this situation to rebel, but only the white police and military have the technology needed to make that possible so they kill me and decide "these people are just in the way anyways" and they kill all of us, so we can go about our merry white lives. This may not be in their self-interest because it leads to ongoing conflict based on constructed differences and imagined communities that puts themselves in danger down the road, but at the time it seemed like a purty good idea because the only person who knows what is good for them is them right?

What a stupid hypothetical this is…
1. From the picture I have seen that I am told is you on facebook… you are not black… infact you are extremely white... most likely Irish.
2. If you were black I doubt that you would be the only one in the world and therefore have someone sympathetic to your cause.
3. If your exact hypothetical situation does occur yes please revolt.

What about people who obviously can't make the best decisions about themselves like children and mentally handicapped? How will these people be guaranteed some kind of safety in this world? IS IT IN THE COURTS??!?!

Do they have families? Do charities for the needy not exist?

You are no Henry Clay sir! I would say it may be more like driving in the middle of a bridge that is over a giant pit of lava in flames (in hell) and you take the middle of the road because fuck falling of the bridge isn't going to feel to great.

Yea that Missouri compromise was a powerful force in preventing the civil war… we are all glad that happened. What is wrong with having the resolve that slavery is wrong or right. Instead let’s say that it is allowed here but not there.

No, its wrong because John Locke bases his claims political rights are predicated on property (why would you enter into the social contract if you did not have something to protect like your property). And property is something Locke defines as something that is labored on by oneself.

Property is something that you own it does not necessarily refer to the piece of land that you live on. My watch is my property. My Desk is my property.

In other words, if you don't have property you are shit out of luck, and moreover if the land you live on isn't seen as labored upon, you are also shit out of luck.

Everyone has property of some kind. You labor for money. Money buys you stuff and that stuff is your property.

Point being, Locke wrote the Second Treatise of Government in order to justify things going on in Britain around the Glorious Revolution to make a case for people like him to have more power and say in the government. Fun fact: Glorious Revolution was also in 1688, could it be a coincidenceeeee?

No I don’t think it was a coincidence and I what is wrong with writing an account of his justifications… Do you believe that he is trying to justify it because he thinks he did something wrong or do you think he is just trying to explain it to other people?

For more fun facts: Read Michel Foucault - Discipline & Punish.

No thanks

Because in the 5th C. BC democracy was for like 2% of the population at the most.

That was not the point I was eluding to the fact that some ideas do not expire easily.

Why you believe in something so silly?

I don’t believe that I called you ideas about government silly even though I may think they are.

Go back to where I said "People often bend the truth to fit their ideology" or what not.

]If you mean by obscure references you mean: not some dudes blog (which is beyond obscure), or not Fox News, CNN, or a major mass media news source, but instead BOOKS, BOOKS my dear Watson then you can call me obscure.

Flattery will get you nowhere Dejavu! I hope this makes you rethink or at least explore your value system more, I know every time I have a post like this it makes me do that.

The fact that people often bend truth to fit their ideas is the whole reason behind my making of this post. I was asking the question, why Obama supporters still support him even after he has gone back on several promises and is continuing several of bush’s policies that he was originally against. I don’t mind if you use obscure references but at least explain them instead of saying, “What is a big government? Is it like the old adage about a duck?” say something like, how do you define a big government. Do you look at it like if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it’s a duck or is there some other system in place?

It was not a compliment that I said that you seem to try and confuse the other party in order to win an argument. Using the proper level of colloquialism for your audience is one of the first things that you learn when writing effectively and you are horrendous at it. The only thing that this has done for me is make me think that you are an idiot and I hope for your sake you don’t believe like… half of what u posted.

 

[Mattaru]

Isn’t this true of every political group not just libertarians? The reason I was irritated with your comment is because it makes the assertion that the only way that anyone would be a libertarian is if they have read Rand books and that we are somehow members of a brainwashed cult and yes people of mainstream political groups have gone as far as calling Libertarians in general members of the Ayn Rand cult. Not all libertarians believe in objectivism that is like saying that all Republicans believe in everything that GWB did while he was in office which is far from true as well. Just because someone is grouped together with other people does not mean subscribe to all the same ideals.

No, mainly because Libertarianism is rooted in a particular ideology that is much more specific than Republicans and Democrats which changes and has a good deal of diversity on the whole. I am usually pretty careful about not making such generalizations as these, but I think you can agree with me that all Libertarians who have a position on economics believe that the less interference from the government the better and by extension no intervention is the best - I would call that a pretty strong ideological line for a party.

I think it is not too far fetched to agree that a lot of Libertarian thought has come out of real fundamental and old classical economics and Ayn Rand (and a couple other thinkers). Both of which have ample critiques. I would also say that even though Rand had issues with the Libertarian movement, she was a large influence on it. The point being, check your premises, if the premise of your political ideology has some major problems it needs rethinking. In my experience, despite a lot of evidence, and more importantly a lot of history, seem to go against some fundamental Libertarian ideology so I have to really question if Libertarians just like it because it sounds good to them rather than its soundness as a theory and political party.
If this were the SAT and we were doing an exercise with analogies GWB:Republican Party :: Rand:Libertarian Party would not be a correct answer.

What is wrong with simplicity… The market does heal all. How does it cater to voters? If something is needed it is done for a higher price if something is no longer needed the price falls. When the price of one thing falls the manufacturers of one object will start creating another in order to make a larger profit.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo Da Vinci

This isn't my first day in Microecon dude. It caters to voters because if you offer something well thought through with a lot of analysis to voters they run away like the plague is upon them, while a simplistic interpretation is easily digested (not to say everyone is dumb, more like mass communication isn’t always well-suited to nuanced discussion), but at the same time most Americans I think believe the government has a positive role so obviously it isn't popular.

All I can say is supply and demand are not the entirety of market economics, it is just part of the rules - the biggest part. Point being, market economics is not simple, it is often VERY complicated and just looking at the basic guiding principles oversimplifies it. Even if simplicity is the ultimate sophistication I would argue the modern market economy is not simple.

Exactly what is being made up in my discussion and beyond that I don’t represent anything I say as anything beyond opinion. With that in mind however… prove me wrong.

I think other people are doing a decent job of pointing out how ridiculous your OP is. Moreover, I don't claim that as my burden - although I supported Obama I did so because he didn't strike me as an idiot and I believed he is able to deal with people in a much better way than some other candidates. Personally, I did not see him as changing that much other than being a Democrat and believing in Democratic Party issues for the most part. I think the point of your post was to show everyone who was like in love with Obama that they were wrong or something, unfortunately you are bringing the issue up pretty early in the guys term and you used a really really poor source (some dudes blog who comes across as really biased).

I see nothing wrong with what AIG has done recently as they are working within the confines of the system that has already been set up. Now if the system were to actually punish companies who performed poorly by allowing them to fail AIG would have 2 choices, perform sanely or fail. As long as they can perform the way that they are and not fail they might as well there is no real downside.
Yes, AIG’s problems are largely due to the problems in the investment banking sector. The fact is that AIG insured the banks and therefore when all of the banks started asking for claims on their policies AIG crumbled due to the sheer amount of claims it had against it. When AIG made their policies they made them based upon default risk without considering the market risk. The reason they ignored market risk is due to the fact that all of the companies were functioning within the confines of the regulations of the market.
The banks were told that they were allowed to leverage themselves 30 to 1 and surprise because they were told that they could that became the new standard. Several people at the time stated that they did not think that this kind of leverage was safe but because it was the standard it was accepted by all who wanted to be competitive.

Now if there was no standard as to how a company was leveraged then the company would have to decide how much they would like to leverage. Some companies would be aggressive and leverage themselves to this point and others would be conservative and maybe only leverage themselves at 5 to 1 or so. Now when times are good the aggressive companies will prosper but as soon as anything turns south they will fail. The key principle to making sane decisions is the possibility of failure. If there is no perceived risk there is no reason not to be aggressive.
That is why I say that it comes down to risk assessment. Because it was standardized it made all companies overly aggressive and as soon as the market took a down turn the deleveraging crippled all the banks. Now since AIG insures all these banks against such an event they are the ones left holding the bag. If AIG were able to assess the risk of the banks there would be no way that they would treat the banks who were aggressive the same as they did the ones who were conservative. You charge people based upon perceived risk and because of the regulations that standardized risk AIG perceived the risk that these financial institutions were undertaking as much lower than they actually were.
Nothing AIG did was illegal; however, a lot of the stuff that AIG did was incompetent. They should fail but they are not by any means solely responsible for their failure.

I had originally written a lot more here, but I decided to cut it down to some major themes.
1. You have simplified the causes of the financial crisis, and AIG’s issues in a misleading way – even agreeing with you that the rates set for leveraging is a problem (which I am not going to agree with completely, but that is unimportant because it would be overshadowed by my main point) the whole issue of completely unregulated shadow banking system that financial institutions/banks made a rush on is not even touched on by you. The whole issue there was you had shadow institutions acting like banks but without the regulation of banks and they do not have the amount of assets at hand that banks are required to have so their leverage is super high – and they are completely out of the hands of regulation so the risk management is their own entirely.
2. Uniqueness. The fact is that whether or not these companies chose to look at market risk or not it exists on both sides. Naturally, it exists in the status quo, the incompetence you speak of is them simply choosing not to take it into account and relying on default risk. Moreover, this oversight is not unique to a regulatory system if the shadow banking system is taken into account where risk management was done poorly. Risk assessment exists on both sides, no one is blinded to it, people just made poor decisions in light of it.
3. I think many people agree that these institutions should fail, but they also take into consideration what that means for the economy as a whole and the stability of the country and when taking into account the costs there it was seen as more beneficial to prop up these institutions to prevent total collapse. In other words people make these decisions in a rational way that acknowledges the importance of a middle way over ideological essentializing.

No I think the Crisis is actually a lot worse than most people here do. However I believe that the best way to handle the situation is to allow of the bad companies to fail and everyone who is left over will start over and fill the needs that are out there. The economy is not the responsibility of the government and anything that they do to try and fix it will only delay the inevitable and spend more money unnecessarily in the process.

I think you are digging yourself a hole here. Now I have argued that regulation and government intervention is not the sole demon that you make it out to be that is destroying our economic system, that the market can lead to crisis based on people acting without regulation as well. Basically, turn you argument, crisis is a natural part of the market economy and attempts to regulate it are ways to make that crisis more palatable, not eliminate it, just make it so the chaos in its crisis doesn’t spill over to crisis in other areas as well – back to my China example.

The United States financial crisis hopefully will lead to increased savings. This is a good thing, capital comes from savings and we are quickly running out of capital in this country because we do not make anything anymore. China lately is seeming more capitalist than the US. They saw how Hong Kong turned out and they are taking that example and expanding it to the whole country. They are strongly authoritarian but they are not communist.

Yes, national savings is a good thing. We don’t make anything here anymore because it is cheaper to make it abroad as you know – the US is a service economy more and more these days, its not a bad thing its just the more economically viable thing. We run out of capital because (note that national savings and private savings has been on a decreasing trend since the 70s til at least the early 2000s, I can give you the graph if you want it) of private savings tendency to be spent more in the realm of consumption rather than investment, and national savings is obvious – the government spending too much – I am not against the government spending money, but it doesn’t have to be done the way it has been done. The difference between you and me is therefore how extreme we see solutions as.

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.” -Ronald Reagan

Can I just not talk about this guy, I could, but god I don’t want to.

Moral hazard is important because if there was no safety net there would be more buffer to failure. Now suppose that you were going to an event in FFXI on your black mage. You know that you may have some hard times and may lose 2 or 3k xp during the night. Now what if FFXI stepped in and said oh well you can keep level 75 even if you lose all of your buffer do you still think that you are going to actively try and keep that buffer high enough that you wont run out… probably not. When you take away a reason to fear failure you take away the reason to avoid failure… that is why I brought up moral hazard. Investors risk is limited to the point that they are only responsible to the point that they are invested. Much like in poker you can only lose what you put in the middle.

This doesn’t really clash with what I was saying, in other words it isn’t a really relevant response. My point is for people at the top of large institutions like AIG, moral hazard doesn’t play into their calculations of self-interest in these situations because their financial well-being isn’t necessarily tied to the financial well-being of their company anymore because of how diverse their risk is. In other words, if AIG tanked completely these people weren’t just going to the poor house.

Risk analysis… if the reward is bigger… the willingness to take risks goes up…

The government stepped in and bailed out these companies because for years China has been heavily invested in our treasuries and investment banks. AIG was failing because of the investment banks. If we didn’t bail out AIG and the investment banks that China had invested in there is a strong possibility that they would refuse to loan us money anymore and very possibly have a larger issue such as a future physical confrontation.

Of course if we had balanced books on a federal level in the first place this wouldn’t be a problem. I believe that politicians are horrible economists and they are trying to control the uncontrollable. That is why I do believe what they should do is nothing… They may not control it but they do affect it dramatically and anytime that they do get in the way of the market they only thing they do to it is pervert it and divert resources. The problem is that in this country it is better to look ignorant rather than impotent.

China in the US are just not going to go to war sorry. I think it was the finance minister of China or Hu Jintao that said basically that China wants the US economy to be stable or else it is just too risky to invest in, I think the US and China both want that and it doesn’t go beyond that as far as their relationship is involved. Japan also holds a lot of US money in reserves, but no one makes a big deal out of that because of how the US perceives China vs. Japan (without good grounding in that perception).
Being a horrible economist is not unique to politicians – I think there are economists that are terrible economists etc. I have always been of the persuasion that politicians are actually pretty bad at having an effect on the economy and just like to take credit if its good and pass on blame if its bad, but I also believe that “the market” is a public good and like any public good it has to be regulated in some sense so people do not take advantage of it and that enough trust exists that people feel comfortable engaging in it.

The market will regulate everything if it is allowed to. If something is not made in sufficient quantities for demand… the price goes up and more people are willing to make it. If something is made beyond demand the price goes down and people who made it move onto other things. Anytime there is under or overproduction the price adjusts and so does the amount of people willing to produce. That’s basic economics. If you believe that the invisible hand cannot regulate the market then how do you possibly think that the government possibly can?

Externalities. This is also basic economics. You seem to think that I think the government should regulate the economy in the sense that it applies to the WHOLE economy. The invisible hand is a metaphor and a vague one and not really used often by Smith, but picked up and used in a widespread way because it was a simplification of something much more complex. Honestly, pure economic rationality is posited often on givens of perception and human behavior to function correctly – an oft used one being things like perfect information and in practice a lot of this is muddled because practice is never as good as theory so when you say things like “the market will regulate everything if it is allowed to” seems to be based mainly in theory and not in practice.

Capitalism isn’t meant to benefit everyone equally. If you want to be treated better by capitalism you work harder and you make it happen. That’s the funny thing is that I actually agree with Unions in theory however in practice they are far from what they should be. If it were voluntary and universally binding that would be fine but typically it is a requirement or it splits the workforce into 2 parties… Union and non-union.

In the case where employees must be union it forces you to withhold dues from your paycheck in order to pay for the union officials otherwise you will not be allowed to take the job. On the other hand if you are in the voluntary union position the unions typically get deals that are not afforded to the non union worker such as a higher pay rate or job security since typically non union people will be fired first.

Capitalism in a classic sense is meant only to increase the net amount of revenue in society, while yes this does increase well-being it says nothing about equity and how people respond to that. I am not talking about having complete equity, I am talking about providing some balancing mechanism to stop potential conflict based on mass perceived inequity. Basically, a society with huge inequity isn’t good for the elite class in the long run because of how it can affect social, political stability. But, because people tend to refrain from investing into that common good of stability because of the issue of free-riding the government attempts to fulfill this role.
Not going to get in a union debate because I don’t disagree with you fundamentally here, just an example of what could be called an interest group.

Not about to read a second habermas book but I read his book “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” and I remember that he was extremely socialist. I know the basic arguments for and against socialism so if he brought up something really interesting please outline it but reading that book would be several days of wasted time imo… because translated from German books are hard reading.

Yeah, I’d say it is safe to call him socialist/Marxist. The basic argument that is important to take from it is that the government plays a role as a type of balancing act between classes and there are times when the balance goes out of whack when one group can no longer legitimize itself to another and this is when legitimacy crises occur and groups try to avoid this from happening.

Honestly I asked Truegrave in vent what the hell you were talking about and that’s what he came up with after about 30 minutes of looking for something that was specifically referring to big government and not just a common adage that could be used towards anything seemingly obvious about a duck.

Am I being demonized because I thought you would know a saying about a duck that I thought was pretty common? Sorry?

Court… generic term for a means to enforce the laws
Military… generic term for protection from foreign aggression
Police… generic term for protection from domestic aggression

I was defining the purpose of government not its structure… there will still be a legislative executive and judicial branch etc…

But you didn’t say earlier that there would be a legislative branch…so are you just going to add things when its more convenient to?

Congress has the ability to declare and fund war, once war is declared the president is the commander of the army. Any aggressive war should not occur but anything that is a direct response to aggression by another nation should be considered. The court may be corrupt and the framers of the country understood that which is why in the declaration of independence it states (and the Constitution part you quoted)

So everytime something bad happens we have to have a revolution (once again crisis) and moreover it has the possibility of being just straight up vigilantism? The whole point of having elected officials etc. is so people don’t have to take all of these things in to their own hands which slows down their ability to just live their lives.
Moreover if we took the right to bear arms like its intended purpose – aka not shooting deer. We would have to have tanks and ICBMs to go and overthrow the US government, the closest thing we have to that are a bunch of people in the woods in Michigan who I think most people agree on – are a bit off.

Communitarianism to me is just another word for authoritarianism. Someone else knows better than me what I should be doing and will force me to do so… no thanks. You are muddying the difference between consent of the governed and tyranny of the majority. One issue that you are overlooking is that America is not a democracy. We are in fact a republic which means rule by law.

Representation is important because it allows people to be uninvolved in the political process if they chose to be but those who chose to be uninvolved get what they deserve.

Ughhhhhhh. Just because I bring up a theory don’t go and apply the whole thing to me I never have gone out of my way here and said “I am X. And I believe firmly in A,B,C.” (In other words I haven’t gone tramping around saying I’m a Libertarian and I believe firmly that the government should only be the police, court, and military).
Communitarian theory I find useful in its critique of a kind of “hyper-individualism” that is found in Libertarianism – basically it puts so much emphasis on the individual that individuals begin to think less and less about others in the society and how they are affected by the individual. In doing so things like individual freedom and rights are devalued because corresponding duties to other people are less important.
Did anyone else see that giant contradiction in the last sentence with something said earlier, I did?

What a stupid hypothetical this is…
1. From the picture I have seen that I am told is you on facebook… you are not black… infact you are extremely white... most likely Irish.
2. If you were black I doubt that you would be the only one in the world and therefore have someone sympathetic to your cause.
3. If your exact hypothetical situation does occur yes please revolt.

1. That is kind of weird. For the record I'm British, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, French, Polish, and a little Cherokee.
2. Yeah, I didn’t say I was the only black person in this ‘hypothetical’ example. The point was in a Libertarian society where the individual is so important that things like group solidarity or the recognition of the importance of identified groups in the first place is much less strong than in the status quo because of analysis I offered earlier. So collective action is far less powerful outside of any institutions (which in your world is the police, courts, and military – sorry, maybe a legislature when not having one becomes problematic for you).
3. I’d like to but I lack in resources to take on collusion between the few institutions. But I will anyway and my only hope of success is to bring together people of common interest in a society with a severely retarded ability to form groups for whatever purpose outside of a corporation…

Do they have families? Do charities for the needy not exist?

Do they have families that are good families is the better question and no not all of them do.
Maybe, but at what capacity?

Yea that Missouri compromise was a powerful force in preventing the civil war… we are all glad that happened. What is wrong with having the resolve that slavery is wrong or right. Instead let’s say that it is allowed here but not there.

Yeah…the point is that you are poor at compromising. Obviously you are responding that compromise is not the answer, which is so totalizing I won’t even go into how problematic that is.
Let’s try to come to an agreement of some sort between parties who are fundamentally opposed in order to make some headway no matter how small? I will take that over nothing, sitting in a corner and pouting about it.

Property is something that you own it does not necessarily refer to the piece of land that you live on. My watch is my property. My Desk is my property.



Everyone has property of some kind. You labor for money. Money buys you stuff and that stuff is your property.

So your property is gained as a source of your labor. So we are in agreement? Obviously, in Locke’s time and for purposes of explaining the origin of the social contract he uses land, but yeah it isn’t limited to that.

No I don’t think it was a coincidence and I what is wrong with writing an account of his justifications… Do you believe that he is trying to justify it because he thinks he did something wrong or do you think he is just trying to explain it to other people?

I think he made an ideology to help justify something beneficial to him and others like him and that was it.

That was not the point I was eluding to the fact that some ideas do not expire easily.

I would say it is so vastly different that its hard to call them the same thing.

I don’t believe that I called you ideas about government silly even though I may think they are.

Sorry I find some humor in absurdity.

The fact that people often bend truth to fit their ideas is the whole reason behind my making of this post. I was asking the question, why Obama supporters still support him even after he has gone back on several promises and is continuing several of bush’s policies that he was originally against. I don’t mind if you use obscure references but at least explain them instead of saying, “What is a big government? Is it like the old adage about a duck?” say something like, how do you define a big government. Do you look at it like if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it’s a duck or is there some other system in place?

Covered all of this already.

It was not a compliment that I said that you seem to try and confuse the other party in order to win an argument. Using the proper level of colloquialism for your audience is one of the first things that you learn when writing effectively and you are horrendous at it. The only thing that this has done for me is make me think that you are an idiot and I hope for your sake you don’t believe like… half of what u posted.

Yeah, I know. I was being sarcastic about you saying I have a big brain.
Covered Duck.
I don’t think you are an idiot, I think you are an ideologue, you should go into politics. I don’t think I’m an idiot, but I think I learn new things everyday and I don’t limit myself to a definition in my beliefs and corner myself in like you seem to take pride in doing. I try and take things for what they are, not how I can fit them into my worldview.

 

[Dejavu]

No, mainly because Libertarianism is rooted in a particular ideology that is much more specific than Republicans and Democrats which changes and has a good deal of diversity on the whole. I am usually pretty careful about not making such generalizations as these, but I think you can agree with me that all Libertarians who have a position on economics believe that the less interference from the government the better and by extension no intervention is the best - I would call that a pretty strong ideological line for a party.

I think it is not too far fetched to agree that a lot of Libertarian thought has come out of real fundamental and old classical economics and Ayn Rand (and a couple other thinkers). Both of which have ample critiques. I would also say that even though Rand had issues with the Libertarian movement, she was a large influence on it. The point being, check your premises, if the premise of your political ideology has some major problems it needs rethinking. In my experience, despite a lot of evidence, and more importantly a lot of history, seem to go against some fundamental Libertarian ideology so I have to really question if Libertarians just like it because it sounds good to them rather than its soundness as a theory and political party.
If this were the SAT and we were doing an exercise with analogies GWB:Republican Party :: Rand:Libertarian Party would not be a correct answer.

It is a fairly strong ideological line for a party I will admit but what is the problem with being ideological. I actually see that as a quality. Being able to ignore the short term gains given by big government makes it possible for long term prosperity through fiscal discipline. It comes to the same reason I used to have trouble getting my homework done… if there is no due date it won’t get done because there is always the belief that there will be another time where you will be more willing to do it.

The problem is that we are taught in this country to be consumers and why save for something when you can buy it on credit now. There is the belief that things will always get better and there will never be a rainy day. This belief is starting to disappear and that is why the economy is declining. The bubble is deflating. It is not really crashing like most people like to convince us it is but it is only returning to where it should be historically.

I don’t believe that the premises behind the libertarian movement are wrong and if you have a specific argument against them please outline them. You state that there are major problems but you do not list one. Rand did not consider herself a libertarian… In fact she stated that she was only an objectivist.

Libertarianism has not been tried. Free trade has not been tried (nafta cafta etc are still protectionist).

Right or wrong what libertarianism does is allow you to make your own mistakes… you make a bad choice and you are responsible for it and you will live with the consequences. On the other hand when government makes these choices for you, you have to live with the results whether you would have made better choices or not.

This isn't my first day in Microecon dude. It caters to voters because if you offer something well thought through with a lot of analysis to voters they run away like the plague is upon them, while a simplistic interpretation is easily digested (not to say everyone is dumb, more like mass communication isn’t always well-suited to nuanced discussion), but at the same time most Americans I think believe the government has a positive role so obviously it isn't popular.

All I can say is supply and demand are not the entirety of market economics, it is just part of the rules - the biggest part. Point being, market economics is not simple, it is often VERY complicated and just looking at the basic guiding principles oversimplifies it. Even if simplicity is the ultimate sophistication I would argue the modern market economy is not simple.

The problem is that people believe that the people in Washington are smarter than them. The representatives get on the TV and say we believe what we are doing is right and the economy is too complicated to understand so … trust us and we will fix things. This crisis is an example of where they have gotten us and now as a result of the crisis they are asking for even more power to fix the problem. It is like they are drilling an oil well and so far they are 1000 feet below the soil and they have yet to find anything. They are saying just give me 500 more feet and I will find something but they are just guessing and there is no guarantee that there will be any oil down there. There is a point where you just have to cut your losses and decide that there is no oil in the hole but where is that point. The argument that you will find oil if you go only 5 feet deeper will always be there and if you listen to it you will never stop trying.

I disagree and state that the market really is that simple. You perceive value that the product that is made by the company has. You state a price and you buy that product when you agree on a price. If you cant agree on a price… you don’t buy it.

I think other people are doing a decent job of pointing out how ridiculous your OP is. Moreover, I don't claim that as my burden - although I supported Obama I did so because he didn't strike me as an idiot and I believed he is able to deal with people in a much better way than some other candidates. Personally, I did not see him as changing that much other than being a Democrat and believing in Democratic Party issues for the most part. I think the point of your post was to show everyone who was like in love with Obama that they were wrong or something, unfortunately you are bringing the issue up pretty early in the guys term and you used a really really poor source (some dudes blog who comes across as really biased).

I don’t think that Obama is an idiot… I think that he genuinely thinks that he can micromanage the entire economy with his Keynesianism and I firmly believe that he is wrong. My point was the fact that people who were typically against certain policies when they were used by bush are now turning a blind eye to them and calling them necessary now that Obama is doing them. I agree that a guys blog is a really bad source I wasn’t using it as a scholarly source. The only thing that I said was it gives people something to think about and they can draw their own conclusions.

I had originally written a lot more here, but I decided to cut it down to some major themes.
1. You have simplified the causes of the financial crisis, and AIG’s issues in a misleading way – even agreeing with you that the rates set for leveraging is a problem (which I am not going to agree with completely, but that is unimportant because it would be overshadowed by my main point) the whole issue of completely unregulated shadow banking system that financial institutions/banks made a rush on is not even touched on by you. The whole issue there was you had shadow institutions acting like banks but without the regulation of banks and they do not have the amount of assets at hand that banks are required to have so their leverage is super high – and they are completely out of the hands of regulation so the risk management is their own entirely.
2. Uniqueness. The fact is that whether or not these companies chose to look at market risk or not it exists on both sides. Naturally, it exists in the status quo, the incompetence you speak of is them simply choosing not to take it into account and relying on default risk. Moreover, this oversight is not unique to a regulatory system if the shadow banking system is taken into account where risk management was done poorly. Risk assessment exists on both sides, no one is blinded to it, people just made poor decisions in light of it.
3. I think many people agree that these institutions should fail, but they also take into consideration what that means for the economy as a whole and the stability of the country and when taking into account the costs there it was seen as more beneficial to prop up these institutions to prevent total collapse. In other words people make these decisions in a rational way that acknowledges the importance of a middle way over ideological essentializing.

So basically you are saying that there are 2 options. They made poor decisions in which case they deserve to fail or they were greedy and knew what they were getting into and they deserve to fail. Systemic risk exists… but that is still something that you should be careful of when you associate with other companies who are involved in risky behavior and therefore no company is too big to fail.

I think you are digging yourself a hole here. Now I have argued that regulation and government intervention is not the sole demon that you make it out to be that is destroying our economic system, that the market can lead to crisis based on people acting without regulation as well. Basically, turn you argument, crisis is a natural part of the market economy and attempts to regulate it are ways to make that crisis more palatable, not eliminate it, just make it so the chaos in its crisis doesn’t spill over to crisis in other areas as well – back to my China example.

I agree that some amounts of crises are inevitable that is the natural business cycle where recessions and recoveries happen. The problem is that with more regulation you widen the recessions because you are trying to make things feel better and make the peaks during the booms sharper because it is very hard to stop the tap once it is going. The growth trend for the unregulated market will be greater because even though the peaks are not as high as the regulated market the unregulated market will trough quickly and bounce back into a long recovery cycle. Another thing is that in an unregulated market the periods of the cycles are much shorter which means that when they do go into a recessionary section it is much less severe.

We should have had a recession after the dot com bubble. Instead we lowered interest rates “as a result of 9/11” and the president got on television and told everyone to spend and we averted that recession. As a result of lower interest rates and fear of the stock market at the time the housing bubble was created. It was only fueled and worsened by the sub-prime market and shadow banks ability to package and sell these assets to Fannie and Freddy. This problem was created by intervention into the economy and trying to avert a recession. Instead they made the bubble bigger and we are going to have a major recession to get back to where we should be.

Yes, national savings is a good thing. We don’t make anything here anymore because it is cheaper to make it abroad as you know – the US is a service economy more and more these days, its not a bad thing its just the more economically viable thing. We run out of capital because (note that national savings and private savings has been on a decreasing trend since the 70s til at least the early 2000s, I can give you the graph if you want it) of private savings tendency to be spent more in the realm of consumption rather than investment, and national savings is obvious – the government spending too much – I am not against the government spending money, but it doesn’t have to be done the way it has been done. The difference between you and me is therefore how extreme we see solutions as.

Almost anything the government does can be done better by the private sector.

Can I just not talk about this guy, I could, but god I don’t want to.

I really hate Reagan for a lot of the stuff he did like the drug war but I agree with him in this regard.

This doesn’t really clash with what I was saying, in other words it isn’t a really relevant response. My point is for people at the top of large institutions like AIG, moral hazard doesn’t play into their calculations of self-interest in these situations because their financial well-being isn’t necessarily tied to the financial well-being of their company anymore because of how diverse their risk is. In other words, if AIG tanked completely these people weren’t just going to the poor house.

If your company fails you have no financial well being therefore… it is in your best interest to keep the company going or you get nothing.

China in the US are just not going to go to war sorry. I think it was the finance minister of China or Hu Jintao that said basically that China wants the US economy to be stable or else it is just too risky to invest in, I think the US and China both want that and it doesn’t go beyond that as far as their relationship is involved. Japan also holds a lot of US money in reserves, but no one makes a big deal out of that because of how the US perceives China vs. Japan (without good grounding in that perception).
Being a horrible economist is not unique to politicians – I think there are economists that are terrible economists etc. I have always been of the persuasion that politicians are actually pretty bad at having an effect on the economy and just like to take credit if its good and pass on blame if its bad, but I also believe that “the market” is a public good and like any public good it has to be regulated in some sense so people do not take advantage of it and that enough trust exists that people feel comfortable engaging in it.

“The market” is not a public good… it is the sum of all goods. It includes private, club, common and public goods.

Externalities. This is also basic economics. You seem to think that I think the government should regulate the economy in the sense that it applies to the WHOLE economy. The invisible hand is a metaphor and a vague one and not really used often by Smith, but picked up and used in a widespread way because it was a simplification of something much more complex. Honestly, pure economic rationality is posited often on givens of perception and human behavior to function correctly – an oft used one being things like perfect information and in practice a lot of this is muddled because practice is never as good as theory so when you say things like “the market will regulate everything if it is allowed to” seems to be based mainly in theory and not in practice.

I know what externalities are and I believe that they can be self regulated under an unregulated market. An example of this would be pollution. Non government groups can be created to do the jobs that the government is currently doing. The FDA for example can be run as a for profit advocacy group. They add value to a product by adding their seal of approval to it and putting their reputation on the line when they back a product. The producer pays for the product to be tested by the third party. Then when a person goes to buy a product they can look at it and determine if they believe in the product based upon the advocacy of the third party which won’t back bad products because their reputation is all they have. If they chose to back bad products their reputation will be tainted as well and the most successful testing group will be used most often by the drug companies because they want to be associated with the best reputation.

The same type of thing could be done with pollution and the EPA. A private group could give companies a seal of approval that adds value to products. If a company is a bad polluter then they will not be able to get a seal from a company with a good reputation and their products will not sell as well.

Beyond this it is still possible for anyone who has harm done to them from these negative externalities to take it to the courts and argue for them to be responsible for the preservation of common goods. The EPA only sets standards which make people willing to settle at a certain level of control rather than continue to try and make a competitive advantage beyond their competitors in the ways of public sentiment. Once again regulation leads to apathy.

Capitalism in a classic sense is meant only to increase the net amount of revenue in society, while yes this does increase well-being it says nothing about equity and how people respond to that. I am not talking about having complete equity, I am talking about providing some balancing mechanism to stop potential conflict based on mass perceived inequity. Basically, a society with huge inequity isn’t good for the elite class in the long run because of how it can affect social, political stability. But, because people tend to refrain from investing into that common good of stability because of the issue of free-riding the government attempts to fulfill this role.
Not going to get in a union debate because I don’t disagree with you fundamentally here, just an example of what could be called an interest group.

So what I am getting is that the best way to not have any poor is to make it so everyone is poor and the difference is not perceived… That is the class warfare ideal exposed in socialism.

Yeah, I’d say it is safe to call him socialist/Marxist. The basic argument that is important to take from it is that the government plays a role as a type of balancing act between classes and there are times when the balance goes out of whack when one group can no longer legitimize itself to another and this is when legitimacy crises occur and groups try to avoid this from happening.

That is his opinion… I disagree

Am I being demonized because I thought you would know a saying about a duck that I thought was pretty common? Sorry?

I don’t know why u think u are being demonized… all I said is that I didn’t understand it and after a while Truegrave and I came to the conclusion that this was the most probable adage that you were referring to because it was unclear.

But you didn’t say earlier that there would be a legislative branch…so are you just going to add things when its more convenient to?

No there is a difference between purpose and structure. I was discussing the purpose you made assumptions about the structure.

So everytime something bad happens we have to have a revolution (once again crisis) and moreover it has the possibility of being just straight up vigilantism? The whole point of having elected officials etc. is so people don’t have to take all of these things in to their own hands which slows down their ability to just live their lives.

How the hell did you come to this conclusion from what I said… If we are attacked congress can declare war and then the president commands the army. We should not be the aggressors in a conflict.

If the government does get out of control then yes it can come to vigilantism. However if the government is out of control then in all probability there will be a lot more people than myself who are going against the government. It is true that most people are apathetic until it gets to a certain point and then it is time to stand up and get involved… for myself I decided a while back that it was time for me to stop being apathetic.

Moreover if we took the right to bear arms like its intended purpose – aka not shooting deer. We would have to have tanks and ICBMs to go and overthrow the US government, the closest thing we have to that are a bunch of people in the woods in Michigan who I think most people agree on – are a bit off.

The right to bear arms is extremely important for the reason of forming some resistance to a government that is out of control… A gun may not seem like a lot when up against a tank but numbers do count for something and if the only way they can stop us is to kill us then they will lose those who are employing them. It is a tool which is best if not used to keep the government inline. The threat of revolution is what is important.

Ughhhhhhh. Just because I bring up a theory don’t go and apply the whole thing to me I never have gone out of my way here and said “I am X. And I believe firmly in A,B,C.” (In other words I haven’t gone tramping around saying I’m a Libertarian and I believe firmly that the government should only be the police, court, and military).
Communitarian theory I find useful in its critique of a kind of “hyper-individualism” that is found in Libertarianism – basically it puts so much emphasis on the individual that individuals begin to think less and less about others in the society and how they are affected by the individual. In doing so things like individual freedom and rights are devalued because corresponding duties to other people are less important.
Did anyone else see that giant contradiction in the last sentence with something said earlier, I did?

If someone chooses to be apathetic that is their business and that is why we have representation because many people do wish to remain apathetic. If you remain apathetic then you get what you deserve. I don’t understand why you think this is a contradiction… It is a choice. You can get involved and work towards what you believe in or you can no get involved and get what u get… I don’t force people to make certain choices.

1. That is kind of weird. For the record I'm British, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, French, Polish, and a little Cherokee.
2. Yeah, I didn’t say I was the only black person in this ‘hypothetical’ example. The point was in a Libertarian society where the individual is so important that things like group solidarity or the recognition of the importance of identified groups in the first place is much less strong than in the status quo because of analysis I offered earlier. So collective action is far less powerful outside of any institutions (which in your world is the police, courts, and military – sorry, maybe a legislature when not having one becomes problematic for you).
3. I’d like to but I lack in resources to take on collusion between the few institutions. But I will anyway and my only hope of success is to bring together people of common interest in a society with a severely retarded ability to form groups for whatever purpose outside of a corporation…

1. yea it is.. lol but when you said you were black I was like… I don’t think he is and a friend is like he is not … here is his facebook picture.
2. Then what was the purpose of making it a race issue and not just that you were beaten by the police and the courts tried to protect the police? You were the one who made the groups all I did was build off of your ideals.
3. If your cause has a leg to stand on you will find supporters.

Do they have families that are good families is the better question and no not all of them do.
Maybe, but at what capacity?

Not everyone has a good job but some people do. You cannot make policy based upon non typical circumstances and in the cases where families do fail there will be charities that step in and fill the role that the families are unable to.

Yeah…the point is that you are poor at compromising. Obviously you are responding that compromise is not the answer, which is so totalizing I won’t even go into how problematic that is.
Let’s try to come to an agreement of some sort between parties who are fundamentally opposed in order to make some headway no matter how small? I will take that over nothing, sitting in a corner and pouting about it.

No what you do is make an argument and convince the other side that you are in fact right. I am not saying that compromise is not a good thing but a lot of times it is a scapegoat to actually improving things by once again doing the wrong thing rather then doing nothing. My point is that a lot of times compromise creates more problems than it solves because it gets most of the problems from both sides of the issues.

So your property is gained as a source of your labor. So we are in agreement? Obviously, in Locke’s time and for purposes of explaining the origin of the social contract he uses land, but yeah it isn’t limited to that.

I think he made an ideology to help justify something beneficial to him and others like him and that was it.

I would say it is so vastly different that its hard to call them the same thing.

Sorry I find some humor in absurdity.

Covered all of this already.

Yeah, I know. I was being sarcastic about you saying I have a big brain.
Covered Duck.
I don’t think you are an idiot, I think you are an ideologue, you should go into politics. I don’t think I’m an idiot, but I think I learn new things everyday and I don’t limit myself to a definition in my beliefs and corner myself in like you seem to take pride in doing. I try and take things for what they are, not how I can fit them into my worldview.

The rest of this I think we can just say that we have differing opinions except for the current definition of property apparently.

I am idealistic; I don’t think that this impractical or a negative thing. I am also a realist... i understand that the ideal is most likely not possible but we should still strive to be ideal. I have been starting to try and go into politics but it is an extremely difficult profession to get into. I also am a lifelong learner hence my desire to get into open debate with you and test my theories about life and politics. I believe that the best way to test your beliefs is to try and defend them. The problem is that if I were truly as rigid about my world view as you seem to imply how would I have ever gotten to this one seeing as it is supposedly not very common? I do currently believe in my view of the world but I am not going to say without a doubt that it cannot change that would be ignorant. For now however this is what I believe and the only way that is going to change is if a better argument is made or I am unable to defend it… which has not happened yet.