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What does liberty mean to you?

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 2:37 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
CG wrote:
My money going to a welfare check ahs nothing to do with me being generous, it has everything to do with me going to jail if I don't.
You cannot be put in jail for refusing to pay income tax. It's voluntary.
That is, to say the least, a very interesting point of view. Tax protestors have tried it in court, and lost. It may be true, but judges don't agree.
Jnyusa wrote:
CG wrote:
So which of these two socialist parties aren't socialist?
I don't see anything in there about government ownership of the means of production, so I'd have to say that neither of them is socialist.
Ah, it's only socialism if the government owns the means of production. I'll have to conceed that one because negative income taxes and maximum income levels aren't ownership of the means of production.

So why do so many refer to massive wealth redistribution efforts as socialism?
Jnyusa wrote:
Last time I looked, agreeing to pay Park Rangers out of income tax did not make one a socialist. Neither did support for progressive income taxes (which already exist), publicly managed health insurance (which already exists in less extensive form), public education (which already exists in less extensive form, through graduate school, btw, in case you didn't know that), a Bureau of Standards (which already exists), protection of critical resources like air and water (which laws already exist), and a National Employment Act (passed in 1946, long before you were born).
Then why do so many people refer to those as socialism?
Jnyusa wrote:
Tell you what ... when I see a Libertarian paving the street in front of his own house before he dares to drive on it, then I'll take him seriously.
Tell you what ... when I see a Green give all her welath to the poor then doing without public utilities and eating nothing but home grown organic food, then I'll take her seriously.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 4:19 pm
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CG wrote:
Tax protestors have tried it in court, and lost.
The issue for tax refusers is whether they can keep their assets and also refuse to pay taxes, not whether they are compelled to pay taxes.

It is not a crime to refuse to pay your taxes, but 'tax refuser' is an official status, in the same way that 'conscientious objector' is an official status. One must apply for this ... I don't know what all is involved because I have not done it myself but I knew a whole group of people who have, and most of them are Libertarian, jbtw. They cannot be arrested but they do have to file every year and the courts have held that the government has the right to seize their assets for payment of back taxes, so they have to jump through hoops to keep their assets in someone else's name.

Some of them have very funny Robin Hood stories about how they've outwitted the government ... but the underlying story is not usually very funny because people have very serious reasons for undertaking a protest of that magnitude. Usually there is quite a passionate conviction underlying this decision.
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Ah, it's only socialism if the government owns the means of production.
Strictly speaking, yes. It is true that 'socialism' has become a slur, like 'commie' or 'pinko' to cover everything that sociopaths don't like, but this interests me not at all.
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I'll have to conceed that one because negative income taxes and maximum income levels aren't ownership of the means of production.
That's right. Taxes are not ownership of the means of production. Income caps (referred to as an Incomes Policy) were part of the Republic platform of 1972. They protect the property of stockholders as well as the incomes to labor and they increase the investment potential of publicly traded corporations. That is why incomes policies are discussed. Negative income tax is proposed by free market economists as a less wasteful way of ensuring provision of basic needs, given that we as a society have already accepted that as one of our goals.

There is free market economic theory behind proposals such as these. I would be glad to discuss the ideas behind some of these proposals, but to listen while you cast words that are to you slur words at anyone who entertains these ideas or would like to see them made part of the public discussion, this does not interest me.
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tell you what ... when I see a Green give all her welath to the poor then doing without public utilities and eating nothing but home grown organic food, then I'll take her seriously.
I know plenty of people who are doing this. People who are voluntarily changing their lifestyle at great personal expense so that it will be more in keeping with their principles.

You talk about government being intrusive ... if you want to go off the grid here in Pennsylvania, for ten years you had to pay an exit tax to the utility companies for the electricity you were not using! This was a State law.

The poor in our country not only receive zero net handout from the government - that is, taxes paid by the lowest income quintile equal benefits paid to the lowest income quintile - not only is there NO net handout to the poor, the lowest income quintile gives to charitable causes ten times the amount given by the highest income quintile as a percentage of their income.

Practically everyone I know pays significantly more for organically grown produce, not only because they are personally afraid of contamination but because they feel obligated to support the market while it tries to achieve scale economies.

The USDA undertook a whole new approach to chemical insectides about thirty years ago at the urging of the farmers themselves because the cancer rates among farmers were skyrocketing. Those original chemical protocols were advertised by the government. The training in their use was done by the government. The distribution was facilitated by the government. Much like the timber industry today - where the government undertakes so many costs of production on behalf of timber companies that the trees in our national forest actually have a negative price.

You want to get rid of public lands thinking that the cost of business will go down. I assure you that the cost of business will skyrocket! All the public lands in the US are used to subsidize mining companies and timber companies and insurance companies that own the vast cattle ranches of the west. Those subsidies come at the expense of the middle class. I would LOVE to see them eliminated. I dare the Libertarians to undertake such a platform. You'll be murdered for it, I assure you. And I am not speaking metaphorically.

Meanwhile all the significant efforts in environmental areas - lowering carbon costs, reducing ag chem, creating wetland and carbon sequestration reserves for water and air purity - they are being done under private initiative. When the EPA does get involved it is only to set standards or to propose legislation that will create private markets.

This is the thing that fanatic individualism seems unable to grasp ... that there are groups of people within our society who DO suffer tangibly, who lose their right to life and to property, because of 'mistakes' made by our choice of production processes. If the government was responsible for the dissemination of these mistakes, then it is reasonable to expect the government to get involved in their correction. This should be a matter of efficiency and not a matter of ideology. The original argument in favor of government helping business was 'efficiency and productivity,' so let's see big business sleep in the bed it has made.

If it is a matter of ideology, then government welfare should be withdrawn from all corporations. That would terminate about 80% of our government budget, which in all cases takes the form of turnkey contracts and not ownership of the means of production, and it would be the end of the Fortune 500.

It is utter nonsense to talk about the drop of pee in the bucket that takes the form of children's lunch programs and health insurance. When the government intrudes, it busies itself redistributing income to the top executives of corporations and transferring property to the wealthy, not to the poor.

Jn

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yovargas
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 6:06 pm
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Strictly speaking, yes. It is true that 'socialism' has become a slur, like 'commie' or 'pinko' to cover everything that sociopaths don't like, but this interests me not at all.
I do not consider it a slur and don't know of anybody who does (unless CG does, I don't know). Anyways, I took it to mean primarily to government redistributing wealth as well as public industry. So, yes, I viewed welfare of any sort is a socialist policy. Again, not a slur, just what I thought/think the word means.


And thanks for the sideswipe insults, btw. They're greatly appreciated.


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The Watcher
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 6:26 pm
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Why I avoid the Symp now as well as Manwe, since all of these issues are too fraught with not only personal convictions, but emotions as well. BTW, I agree with Jny ALMOST (not quite) 100%. There is a sort of citizenship standard that goes along with being part of ANY nation, and I for one am frankly quite tired of hearing from all of those out there who do not recognize it. Noone lives in isolation from the greater social structure out there, and if THAT is indeed what you want, then go find some place and set up your OWN country. Nothing in the US Constitution ever guranteed the rights of the individual OVER that of society at large, only that individual rights were important. That is a huge difference.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 7:58 pm
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Lord M, quoting from the USA Green Platform:
Quote:
Democratic Conversion of Big Business: Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker, consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees, 50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.

Democratic Banking: Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions.
Lord M., I'm sorry that I overlooked your post earlier.

There are two issues here. One is the current composition of business ownership, and the other is US anti-trust law.

And I will say first of all, that I do not agree with everything proposed by the Green Party any more than I agreed with everything proposed by the Republican Party when I was a member. One problem I have with my party is the same as the problem I have with the Libertarians: the philosophy on some issues is very grand, but there is little evidence that party members understand or appreciate the complexity of the issues they are tackling.

When the platform calls for mandatory reorganization of business, I do tremble. Philosophically I can agree with this because a number of US industries are in hideous violation of our original anti-trust laws, and the banking industry is among the worst. There is some history behind this - it goes back to the Monetary Control Act of 1980 which deregulated the financial services industry - but I don't want to type a big lecture about this. Suffice it to say that the mergers and acquisitions craze and concentration of the banking industry which began in 1980 have been severely detrimental to our economy. By detriment I mean not only jobs but business investment as well, and specifically the liquidity of the economy.

So I am in basic agreement that we need some serious trust busting, and I say that as a devoted free market economist. The definition of free markets is: markets with lots and lots of competition. We need more competition, and paradoxically this can only be done by means of government regulation of trusts because the price system alone cannot achieve it in heavily capitalized industries. This is Econ 101.

But regulation to increase competition does not mean that the government has to own the means of production, and I would be opposed to that solution in all cases that do not involve public assets (like national monuments).

We have quite a few successful, worker-owned enterprises in Philadelphia. Our third-largest supermarket chain is one such. And our second-largest supermarket chain has committed to matching the wages of the worker-owned corporation because it turns out that fairness to workers and community commitment do indeed have utility for shoppers. They are willing to pay to live in an economically healthy community.

As a practical matter, when a large corporation is broken up for anti-trust reasons, there is no reason why the workers should not be able to bid on the remains, same as everyone else.

As for consumer-owned enterprises ... they're probably thinking of consumer cooperatives, which I put in a different class from enterprises for production. Consumer ownership of the means of production would be a meaningless concept; that's just a publicly traded corporation.

To tell you the truth, I'm not 100% sure what the platform means by "publicly owned enterprise," because this is also the word we use for stockholder companies. But I suspect that in the Green platform they are suggesting that government be allowed to own the so-called 'critical industries,' as is done in many European countries - energy, transportation, petro-chemical, and so on. That is Socialism, and I do oppose it, but for practical more than philosophical reasons.

There was a sense, in the last half of the twentieth century, that governments would be more likely to operate in the public good than would the private sector. This sense still lingers among most Greens, I think. It is not an illusion held by the Libertarians at all, and it is not an illusion held by me.

For example, the one enterprise in the United States that operates consistently in violation of environmental law is the United States government. In its role as public watchdog, the government could long ago have placed restrictions on the ability of industries to buy up patents for the purpose of removing superior technologies from the marketplace. If they had done so, solar energy would be decades ahead of where it is now. The government chose to support and subsidize the oil industry instead. So I do not see any basis for believing that if critical industries were placed in the hands of government, they would pollute less than they are doing now, whereas I see many reasons to fear they would pollute even more.

But it remains true that government regulation can either promote or destroy competition. We've spent the last three decades destroying competition and the free markets that go with it. I very strongly support a shift in the opposite direction.

Jn

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yovargas
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x-post with Jn; this post was replying to TW

Though I don't necessarily agree, I don't necessarily disagree either. What I am arguing against is calling that liberty. You're talking about forced servitude - to varying degrees - and if that is what you see as the price of belonging to a civilized nation, I can believe that. But don't call forced servitude liberty! I had chills last night when seeing that and I could only think of 1984's "War is Peace" double talk.


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 10:51 pm
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Jnyusa wrote:
CG wrote:
tell you what ... when I see a Green give all her welath to the poor then doing without public utilities and eating nothing but home grown organic food, then I'll take her seriously.
I know plenty of people who are doing this. People who are voluntarily changing their lifestyle at great personal expense so that it will be more in keeping with their principles.

You talk about government being intrusive ... if you want to go off the grid here in Pennsylvania, for ten years you had to pay an exit tax to the utility companies for the electricity you were not using! This was a State law.
It's a law ... sounds like the governmet is being intrusive if it's a law. Perhaps the utilities convinced the government to pass the law and thus make it a law, but if it's a law it means the government made it a law.
Jnyusa wrote:
The poor in our country not only receive zero net handout from the government - that is, taxes paid by the lowest income quintile equal benefits paid to the lowest income quintile - not only is there NO net handout to the poor, the lowest income quintile gives to charitable causes ten times the amount given by the highest income quintile as a percentage of their income.
Are we talking about taxes or charity?

Anyway, if the poor recieve zero net handout that means that for every single dollar of public assistance the individual pays one dollar in taxes. Someone living on welfare and disability pays the exact same amount back to the government in taxes. Their net income is zero because their gross income is exactly equal to their gross tax bill.

What do they use to buy food and shelter?
Jnyusa wrote:
Practically everyone I know pays significantly more for organically grown produce, not only because they are personally afraid of contamination but because they feel obligated to support the market while it tries to achieve scale economies.
Must I ever chase the goalposts? Your naughty "good guys" are using cars to drive to the store to buy these organic goods. I'll take purchasers of organics seriously when they use horse or bicycle, but no cars, not even electric cars.
Jnyusa wrote:
The USDA undertook a whole new approach to chemical insectides about thirty years ago at the urging of the farmers themselves because the cancer rates among farmers were skyrocketing. Those original chemical protocols were advertised by the government. The training in their use was done by the government. The distribution was facilitated by the government. Much like the timber industry today - where the government undertakes so many costs of production on behalf of timber companies that the trees in our national forest actually have a negative price.
Ranting about the government so, one would mistake you for a libertarian.
Jnyusa wrote:
You want to get rid of public lands thinking that the cost of business will go down. I assure you that the cost of business will skyrocket!
The cost of some businesses would skyrocket, but the end bill by the consumer, once you factor in the raised production costs and the lowered taxes, would be a net benefit.
Jnyusa wrote:
All the public lands in the US are used to subsidize mining companies and timber companies and insurance companies that own the vast cattle ranches of the west. Those subsidies come at the expense of the middle class.
Which is exactly why the government shouldn't be doing that, so as to not stick the bill to the middle class.
Jnyusa wrote:
I would LOVE to see them eliminated. I dare the Libertarians to undertake such a platform. You'll be murdered for it, I assure you. And I am not speaking metaphorically.
We already have the elimination of public land as part of our platform.
Jnyusa wrote:
Meanwhile all the significant efforts in environmental areas - lowering carbon costs, reducing ag chem, creating wetland and carbon sequestration reserves for water and air purity - they are being done under private initiative. When the EPA does get involved it is only to set standards or to propose legislation that will create private markets.
All of these efforts are done under private initiative? You sound even more like a libertairan now. What are you doing in a "socialist" party?
Jnyusa wrote:
If it is a matter of ideology, then government welfare should be withdrawn from all corporations.
That's in our platform. Pretty prominently too. We oppose all welfare, and when we say "all", that includes corporate. Perhaps you aren't as familiar with the platforms of either of our parties.
Jnyusa wrote:
It is utter nonsense to talk about the drop of pee in the bucket that takes the form of children's lunch programs and health insurance. When the government intrudes, it busies itself redistributing income to the top executives of corporations and transferring property to the wealthy, not to the poor.
It does redistribue, in both directions. The fact that someone can collect a welfare check two months in a row shows that at least some of the money is used for food and rent.

And we're opposed to both directions, welfare for the rich AND welfare for the poor. How's THAT for consistency?

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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The Watcher
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Posted: Fri 11 May , 2007 11:45 pm
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yovargas wrote:
x-post with Jn; this post was replying to TW

Though I don't necessarily agree, I don't necessarily disagree either. What I am arguing against is calling that liberty. You're talking about forced servitude - to varying degrees - and if that is what you see as the price of belonging to a civilized nation, I can believe that. But don't call forced servitude liberty! I had chills last night when seeing that and I could only think of 1984's "War is Peace" double talk.
Yovi -

I am sick, literally, with a really bad strep infection, and I feel like shit. Worse than that actually, but, anyhoo. (Not a typo)

What is liberty? Only thinking of oneself as opposed to the greater good? Who gets to decide the greater good? Should it not be the society that one is (hopefully) participating in willingly? So, if you are on X side of an issue and the Y side is favored, does that mean that you get to opt out of Y side because YOU did not agree with it? I hate to state it, but NO society can be what you are suggesting, all you have then is indeed the truest meaning of anarchy. And, sorry, I did not see the 1984 reference, it was nothing I made.

:blackeye:

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 12 May , 2007 12:45 am
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[quote="CG]Their net income is zero because their gross income is exactly equal to their gross tax bill. [/quote]

I said the income quintile nets to zero, not that every individual within it nets to zero.

Taxes and benefits never net to zero for individuals because there are intertemporal transfers. Right now you are a net beneficiary of government largesse because you have a dependent child. When's he's in school (if he goes to public school) you'll be an even bigger net beneficiary because your property taxes don't come near the cost of educating your child along with all the other services that your municipal government pays for on your behalf. But when he's out of school you'll bear a net cost; your taxes will contribute to the cost of someone else's child. And when he's grown completely you'll bear a net cost again because you'll lose your tax deduction. When you hit social security you'll be a net beneficiary again, and so on.
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I'll take purchasers of organics seriously when they use horse or bicycle, but no cars, not even electric cars.
First of all, I'm on foot, kiddo, for almost everything except my job, and I do as much of that as I can from home. But even then there is a carbon cost to the computer and the electricity in the house. If public transportation existed, I would use it. But guess what - that's socialism, right?

I'm renting now so I can't get off the grid, but when I reorganize my own life over the coming year and get in a position to buy, positioning for solar power will be the first thing I think of, along with a lot of other 'green' improvements to the current bulding code ... like not having to breathe formaldahyde in my living room.

Second, you act like all the pollution in the world is generated by environmentalists and therefore they alone should be saddled with cleaning it up. I'm not the one who denies the existence of indivisibilities and transboundary problems. Reducing pollutants is going to require a lot of reorganization of all our lives, and it can't be done all at once. But we have to begin discussing the transition plan. OR, we can stick our heads in the sand and wait for our kids to drop dead from asthma and cancer.

The Libertarians want to get rid of as many public goods as possible, so it is legitimate to ask what will happen with the public goods they are currently using. It makes much less sense to ask an environmentalist why they are using coal-powered electricity when you are the one standing there blocking the alternative.
Quote:
We already have the elimination of public land as part of our platform.
Why don't we START by eliminating the subsidy and see how that goes.

:LMAO:

Alas, if these companies lose the tax subsidy they'll go out of business. They are not viable without government support. And for sure the net impact on consumers (prices less taxes) will not go down if you privatize the land completely. It is easy to demonstrate why the price must rise and not fall. But this is irrelevant if the company is already operating at a loss net of the subsidy. The product will disappear from the market before we have a chance to test the effect on disposable incomes.

(Disappearance is an exaggeration because there are small proprietorships that would pick up some of the slack, but the industry would be greatly reduced.)

In fact, CG, there is little difference between a Libertarian call for forcible removal of corporate welfare and a Green call for forcible reorganization of conglomerates. Both these things require massive restructuring of the economy.

An interesting discussion would be a discussion of how to proceed with something like that so as to avoid another great Depression.

Jn

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Jnyusa wrote:
Why don't we START by eliminating the subsidy and see how that goes.
I thought I said something about that. Wait ...
Cenedril Gildinaur on Fri May 11, 2007 2:51 pm wrote:
Jnyusa wrote:
If it is a matter of ideology, then government welfare should be withdrawn from all corporations.
That's in our platform. Pretty prominently too. We oppose all welfare, and when we say "all", that includes corporate. Perhaps you aren't as familiar with the platforms of either of our parties.
And also here...
Cenedril Gildinaur on Fri May 11, 2007 2:51 pm wrote:
And we're opposed to both directions, welfare for the rich AND welfare for the poor. How's THAT for consistency?
Did you read my post? I'm saying many of the things you're accusing me of not saying and not saying many of the things you're accusing me of saying.

By the way, mass transit doesn't need to be a government agency. The busses could be private.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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yovargas
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L'Osservatrice wrote:
yovargas wrote:
x-post with Jn; this post was replying to TW

Though I don't necessarily agree, I don't necessarily disagree either. What I am arguing against is calling that liberty. You're talking about forced servitude - to varying degrees - and if that is what you see as the price of belonging to a civilized nation, I can believe that. But don't call forced servitude liberty! I had chills last night when seeing that and I could only think of 1984's "War is Peace" double talk.
Yovi -

I am sick, literally, with a really bad strep infection, and I feel like shit. Worse than that actually, but, anyhoo. (Not a typo)

What is liberty? Only thinking of oneself as opposed to the greater good? Who gets to decide the greater good? Should it not be the society that one is (hopefully) participating in willingly? So, if you are on X side of an issue and the Y side is favored, does that mean that you get to opt out of Y side because YOU did not agree with it? I hate to state it, but NO society can be what you are suggesting, all you have then is indeed the truest meaning of anarchy. And, sorry, I did not see the 1984 reference, it was nothing I made.

:blackeye:
(sorry you is sick :hug:)

I feel like people are only hearing the "yov has libertarian leanings..." parts of my posts and not the "...but I'm very open to hearing about other philosophies" part of my posts. Thing is, I am not and haven't been arguing for or against any political positions in this thread (at least I haven't meant to). What I'm saying is, if someone thinks a certain amount of service to society should be required of people, aka a little bit of forced servitude, then that is not liberty. Forced service is not liberty. That is NOT a moral or value judgement. I am not saying that because it is not liberty it is therefore bad. I am not saying you are crazy for thinking this need for social service is more important than liberty. I'm not saying anything except what I would hope would be obvious but apparently is not - forced service is not liberty. If you think any functional society is going to require some forced service to be functional, than that means you're willing to give up some liberties for some services, no? And if that's the way society needs to be to work than so be it. But please don't call it something it's not!!


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Jnyusa
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Jn wrote:
CG wrote:
We already have the elimination of public land as part of our platform.
Why don't we START by eliminating the subsidy and see how that goes.
Apparently I did not make my meaning clear. What I meant was to eliminate the subsidy first, and if that goes well then talk about privatizing the land.

The reason I said that is because the privatization of the land is moot if the land is worthless except for the subsidy.

Are you familiar with the junk bond scandal of the early 1980s? I ask because I don't know how old you are, and though it feels like yesterday to me it might have been before you were born or before you were old enough to be watching politics.
Quote:
Did you read my post?
I'll read yours if you read mine. ;)
yov wrote:
Forced service is not liberty. That is NOT a moral or value judgement. I am not saying that because it is not liberty it is therefore bad.
Forced service can be good. Liberty can be bad. I get it now, but your meaning did escape me the first time around. Thanks for clarifying.

Jn

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yovargas
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Jnyusa wrote:
yov wrote:
Forced service is not liberty. That is NOT a moral or value judgement. I am not saying that because it is not liberty it is therefore bad.
Forced service can be good. Liberty can be bad. I get it now, but your meaning did escape me the first time around. Thanks for clarifying.
Huzzah! Yes, that's what I'm saying. I happen to personally think more liberty is probably better, meaning therefore less forced service is probably better, but I'm open to new ideas and, more relevantly to this thread I think, don't think one should hear "liberty" and think "good" or "not liberty" and think "bad". I'm trying to be more objective than that.


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Jnyusa wrote:
Jn wrote:
CG wrote:
We already have the elimination of public land as part of our platform.
Why don't we START by eliminating the subsidy and see how that goes.
Apparently I did not make my meaning clear. What I meant was to eliminate the subsidy first, and if that goes well then talk about privatizing the land.

The reason I said that is because the privatization of the land is moot if the land is worthless except for the subsidy.
Um, excuse me for saying this, but ... DUH!

Subsidies end with the stroke of a pen. Privatization of the land takes longer. Guess which one will happen first?
Jnyusa wrote:
Are you familiar with the junk bond scandal of the early 1980s? I ask because I don't know how old you are, and though it feels like yesterday to me it might have been before you were born or before you were old enough to be watching politics.
I'm familiar with it. A bunch of legal harassment of a man providing a valuable service. Although this is a completely new topic to this thread, is there any particular aspect of it you wanted to duscuss?
Jnyusa wrote:
CG wrote:
Did you read my post? I'm saying many of the things you're accusing me of not saying and not saying many of the things you're accusing me of saying.
I'll read yours if you read mine. ;)
By reading yours is how I discovered that you're accusing me of saying things I didn't say and accusing me of not saying things I did say.

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Jnyusa
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CG wrote:
I'm familiar with it. A bunch of legal harassment of a man providing a valuable service. Although this is a completely new topic to this thread, is there any particular aspect of it you wanted to duscuss?
I was going to use it to get into some of the complexities of protecting private property. It's an object lesson in the influence of accounting standards on the actual outcome of laws. But ...
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...A bunch of legal harassment of a man providing a valuable service.
I'm afraid I don't follow this statement at all. Junks bonds were endemic throughout the economy in the early 1980s. There was no 'one man' behind them. The market terminated because accounting standards were changed, not because of prosecution.

Is it possible that you are confusing junk bonds with the 'corporate raider' scandals? Those were prosecuted because of failure to report 20% acquisitions to the SEC. That law has not changed as far as I know, and I don't really follow why failing to report would be performing a valuable service to the economy. Is there some reason why the ownership structure of a publicly traded company should be kept secret from its small stockholders?

Jn

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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No, I'm thinking of the persecution (although the persecution ended in prosecution) of "junk bond king" Michael Milken.

So, go ahead and give the details that you want to give on this subject, and please let me know how you intend to tie this new topic into the thread topic.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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Jnyusa
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Milken wasn't prosecuted for trading junk bonds but for trading on insider information.

It's easy to explain why insider trading is anathema to free markets in theory, but hard to determine sometimes where smart trading ends and where the financial markets version of price-fixing begins.

There are a lot of people who thought that Milken was persecuted rather than prosecuted, but my general feeling is to disagree with them. The SEC is so liberal towards the financial services industry that that if an investigation actually ends in charges and conviction then I chalk it up to investigation and not persecution. Going after the same stockbrokers repeatedly without being able to find enough evidence for charges - that would be persecution.

The junk bond market was made possible by the fact that all assets - appreciating and depreciating - were valued at historical cost under accounting rules. It is advantageous to businesses to do it this way in a zero-inflation environment. But after the oil crisis of 1973 we started to have double-digit inflation, and this did not 'cool' below 3% until 1986.

At 3% inflation, the balance sheet value of assets valued at historical cost will be cut in half within 20 years - the typical depreciation period for long term assets at that time. This meant that (1) accumulated depreciation could only replace half the physical capital it needed to when the useful life of that capital ended, and (2) the market value of a firm's appreciating assets exceeded their balance sheet value. It was the second condition that created the market for junk bonds, but the only way investors could be paid was by liquidating the firm, because you don't know what market value is until you actually put the asset up for sale. Junks bonds were a scandal because they eliminated the property of stockholders with the stroke of a pen, and created nothing productive in exchange. The value came from an accounting glitch and not from the provision of utilitarian product.

The relevance of the junk bond scandal to this discussion is that it falls into the following class of things: things that look good on paper but don't work in practice if ambient conditions change.

I mentioned the government subsidies from public lands, and you said that the Libertarian platform calls for the elimination of public lands. That caused me to think of a situation similar to that of the junk bonds, where accounting practices would cause any abrupt change to collapse the whole econoomy of the Southwest. This complication is not usually taken into account either by the Greens (who want to end only the subsidy) or by the Libertarians (who want to end both the subsidy and the public ownership).

The grazing lands leased to farmers by the BLM are controlled via grazing permits. It happens that right now the land is overgrazed (diminishing returns) and productivity would rise if permits were withdrawn from the market, but the BLM can't do that for the following reason. The banks of the Southwest have been accepting grazing permits as collateral on loans, even though the farmer does not technically own the permit but only leases it. Banks are required to maintain ratios of secured to unsecured loans for liquidity purposes. If permits are recalled, it will cause a reclassification of debt from secured to unsecured and the banks will have to start calling in debt to restore their ratios.

Now ... technically, from a free market perspective, we should say 'call in the permits and let the market clear' because the indebtedness of the ranchers is not justified by their productivity, but it was such a scenario in the banking industry that sparked the Great Depression, and there would certainly be a liquidity crisis in the southwest if we tried to withdraw this particular government subsidy from the ranchers. The subsidy has infiltrated the whole regional economy, so the speak, by way of the banking industry. That was what had happened in the 1920s - the wayward accounting practices of a newly emerging manufacturing sector had infiltrated the wholenational economy by way of the banking industry, and when the inevitable 'correction' came, it collapsed our economy and then migrated via tariffs to the rest of the world.

Before the subsidy can be terminated or the public land eliminated, the banking industry will have to transform its accounting practices with regard to rancher assets.

I didn't bring this example to contradict anything that you said but to explore some of the complexities involved in implementing our respective ideological positions.

Jn

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Jny, you might wish to investigate the role of the Federal Reserve in the depreciating dollar that underlies every problem in what you wrote. Your problem isn't the free market, but once again the government.

The antics of the Federal Reserve, not any free market actions, that caused the Great Depression. It's also the Federal Reserve, not the free market, that causes the inflation that makes assets valued in historical costs inaccurate.

Fortunately the Libertarian Party has a solution to the depreciating dollar - eliminate the source of the depreciation.

By the way, the great advantage of junk bonds was that they were a loop-hole in the rules about hostile takeovers of one company by another, which usually needed about one week warning before it could be accomplished. Using junk bonds it could be accomplished in a day. The great disadvantage of Michael Milken is that he didn't lobby enough. Like Microsoft, there were insufficient lobbyists in Washington to prevent hostile actions by the government.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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Jnyusa
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CG, the Fed is private, not government.

Though it's creation was authorized in 1913 and it officially came into existence in 1916 the Fed had insufficient power to either cause or prevent the Great Depression. The laws that created the banking industry as we know it today and brought liquidity crises under control were not passed until 1936.

A weak dollar had little or nothing to do with causing the Depression, though if the dollar had been stronger it is possible that it would have taken longer for the Depression to infect Europe. It had everything to do with the way the manufacturing sector did its accounting and how this affected banks as vehicles of investment. The Depression was not a market phenomenon but an institutional phenomenon. The problem was not too much money (causing inflation and, if inflation rates are lower in other countries, a relatively weaker dollar abroad), it was too little money at the wrong time of the year. Most (~80%) of the US economy was employed in agriculture, and the liquidity needs of the agricultural sector are seasonal. It was the investor relationship between Country Banks that served the agricultural sector and City Banks that served the manufacturing sector that caused the collapse of the banking industry and sparked the Great Depression.

All of this was aggravated, of course, by a lot of hinky business practices like trading on margin in the stock market with insufficient reserves, but the underlying real phenomenon is well-understood in the field of economics - we'd been grappling with it for the eighty years prior to the GP, through sixteen other liquidity crises and subsequent recessions. All surplus ultimately comes from surplus in the agricultural sector, and it was the failure of this sector, provoked by the banking industry, that caused all of the recessions of the 19th century, ending with the Great Depression in the 20th.

Inflation did not become a systematic problem in the US until 1946, and this had to do with the shift to discretionary fiscal and monetary policy the resulted from the National Employment Act.

You are correct that inflation today is caused by the Fed. They control the money supply and the money supply controls inflation. The causality is not perfect, because individual banks also have discretion over how much lending they do, but it is strong enough for us to put the blame for inflation squarely on the Fed.

I would not like to be given a choice between 3% inflation and another hundred years of cyclical liquidity crises. The only liquidity crisis we've had since 1936 was in the early 1980s following the Monetary Control Act, and it was terrible, terrible, but also not really a market phenomenon - much of it resulted from insider loans that went into default. If I had my druthers I'd like to see Friedman's formula enacted and discretionary monetary policy taken away from the Fed. But I would not like to see the Fed dismantled.
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By the way, the great advantage of junk bonds was that they were a loop-hole in the rules about hostile takeovers of one company by another, which usually needed about one week warning before it could be accomplished. Using junk bonds it could be accomplished in a day. The great disadvantage of Michael Milken is that he didn't lobby enough. Like Microsoft, there were insufficient lobbyists in Washington to prevent hostile actions by the government.
Well ... this is factually incorrect, and also a peculiar view but you're entitled to your view of Milken and Gates. The kind of issues raised by their business practices are somewhat outside the scope of free market economics because we have no theoretical basis for eliminating the deadweight loss from capitalization in one manner versis another. This too is an institutional decision about which opinions will differ.

Jn

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Jnyusa wrote:
CG, the Fed is private, not government.
It was created by an act of congress, and has the legal protection of being the only bank to print currency. All banks are required to do business with the Federal Reserve. While it is private, it's edicts are backed by the government and the chairman is appointed by an elected official.

I'd say it is private in the same sense as the Post Office and Amtrack are also private.
Jnyusa wrote:
Though it's creation was authorized in 1913 and it officially came into existence in 1916 the Fed had insufficient power to either cause or prevent the Great Depression. The laws that created the banking industry as we know it today and brought liquidity crises under control were not passed until 1936.
I'll grant that it wasn't the only factor.

By keeping interest rates artificially low throughout the 1920s a speculative bubble the likes of which this country had never seen before was created, including subsidiary bubbles. The stock market was only the best well known, but there were also real estate bubbles, especially in Florida where (if you use constant value dollars) it took 50 years for the prices to recover.

The malinvestments would have liquidated a lot earlier with much less damage had the artificially low interest rates not continued to inflate the economy. By the time the Federal Reserve Board realized what was going on, they attempted to correct by sharply raising rates and popping all the bubbles. That was a major cause of the Great Recession.

Other factors are purely political, such as the heavy trade embargos in most countries.
Jnyusa wrote:
A weak dollar had little or nothing to do with causing the Depression, though if the dollar had been stronger it is possible that it would have taken longer for the Depression to infect Europe. It had everything to do with the way the manufacturing sector did its accounting and how this affected banks as vehicles of investment. The Depression was not a market phenomenon but an institutional phenomenon. The problem was not too much money (causing inflation and, if inflation rates are lower in other countries, a relatively weaker dollar abroad), it was too little money at the wrong time of the year. Most (~80%) of the US economy was employed in agriculture, and the liquidity needs of the agricultural sector are seasonal. It was the investor relationship between Country Banks that served the agricultural sector and City Banks that served the manufacturing sector that caused the collapse of the banking industry and sparked the Great Depression.
Close. The problem was neither a weak nor a strong dollar, but an inflated dollar. This messed up all accounting practices nation-wide as for the first time in American history constant inflation became a reality. The inflated loans encouraged by the Federal Reserve caused the bank collapses that in turn caused the liquidity crises.
Jnyusa wrote:
All of this was aggravated, of course, by a lot of hinky business practices like trading on margin in the stock market with insufficient reserves, but the underlying real phenomenon is well-understood in the field of economics - we'd been grappling with it for the eighty years prior to the GP, through sixteen other liquidity crises and subsequent recessions. All surplus ultimately comes from surplus in the agricultural sector, and it was the failure of this sector, provoked by the banking industry, that caused all of the recessions of the 19th century, ending with the Great Depression in the 20th.
Other liquidity crises didn't produce a Great Depression (or even the Great Recession that turned into the Great Depression) because the banks being independent created a situation without cascading defaults, a situation where if one bank fell others stood strong. A liquidity crisis comes from when a bank loans out more than it has in assets, or to be more precise, when a bank does so more than the competing banks do. Before the Federal Reserve, a bank could enjoy temporary immense profits from engaging in fractional reserve banking at a reserve rate lower than the competition - until the competition having collected sufficient bank notes said "pay up." While the bank with the highest reserve rate had lowest profits, it was also the most stable and least likely to default, and most likely to profit from the defaults of the competitiors. It is analogous to a business cutting prices even though it means smaller profits because it means more business.

Some recessions in the 19th Century were agriculturally based. Others were based on unbacked currencies flooding the market as happened on occasion before the banks were centralized.
Jnyusa wrote:
Inflation did not become a systematic problem in the US until 1946, and this had to do with the shift to discretionary fiscal and monetary policy the resulted from the National Employment Act.
Inflation became systematic starting in 1916, but took two big hits when the dollar was taken off of gold in two stages, by FDR and Nixon.
Jnyusa wrote:
You are correct that inflation today is caused by the Fed. They control the money supply and the money supply controls inflation. The causality is not perfect, because individual banks also have discretion over how much lending they do, but it is strong enough for us to put the blame for inflation squarely on the Fed.
Today, since 1916. While the banks can choose to loan less, they must do business with the Federal Reserve, hold a certain amount of their deposits at the Federal Reserve. It is legally impossible to have a bank outside of the Federal Reserve system, or one within the system with higher (or different in any way) reserve rate.
Jnyusa wrote:
I would not like to be given a choice between 3% inflation and another hundred years of cyclical liquidity crises. The only liquidity crisis we've had since 1936 was in the early 1980s following the Monetary Control Act, and it was terrible, terrible, but also not really a market phenomenon - much of it resulted from insider loans that went into default. If I had my druthers I'd like to see Friedman's formula enacted and discretionary monetary policy taken away from the Fed. But I would not like to see the Fed dismantled.
But in the pre-Fed business cycles, once you subtract those caused by the government flooding the market with unbacked notes or those caused by trade wars, you have a case of prosperity and deflation at the same time. Now we have constant inflation eating up savings and a bubble-burst cycle.
Jnyusa wrote:
Quote:
By the way, the great advantage of junk bonds was that they were a loop-hole in the rules about hostile takeovers of one company by another, which usually needed about one week warning before it could be accomplished. Using junk bonds it could be accomplished in a day. The great disadvantage of Michael Milken is that he didn't lobby enough. Like Microsoft, there were insufficient lobbyists in Washington to prevent hostile actions by the government.
Well ... this is factually incorrect, and also a peculiar view but you're entitled to your view of Milken and Gates. The kind of issues raised by their business practices are somewhat outside the scope of free market economics because we have no theoretical basis for eliminating the deadweight loss from capitalization in one manner versis another. This too is an institutional decision about which opinions will differ.
High risk high payout bonds are an essential part of any relatively free economy. Due to the risk involved they were rated as junk, but the name does not imply the value of the bond itself. The real crime was not paying off enough gangsters.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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