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What Was Lost When Political Economy Became Economics?

I'm certainly NOT going to take him as an authority on anything to do with the capitalist system.
Do you see anything to disagree with in the following quote?
"...remember, indirectly, the United States of America is the only reason Switzerland exists anymore as a financial entity. Because its huge banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, were not only serial felons, but were deeply insolvent.

"And the United States, through the Federal Reserve, bailed out the Swiss central bank, which allowed them to bail out the Swiss banks. And of course, it's very handy, because our fingerprints don't look like, you know, the U.S. taxpayers, in essence, bailed out these fraudulent Swiss banks.

"But we did.

"And mind you, we did it again, secretly, through AIG.

"When AIG paid a whole bunch of not only Goldman Sachs, but foreign banks, including a very large Swiss bank a hundred cents on the dollar when they could have paid far less on the things called the collateral default swaps"

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13531
 

Lukey

Senator
Do you see anything to disagree with in the following quote?
"...remember, indirectly, the United States of America is the only reason Switzerland exists anymore as a financial entity. Because its huge banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, were not only serial felons, but were deeply insolvent.

"And the United States, through the Federal Reserve, bailed out the Swiss central bank, which allowed them to bail out the Swiss banks. And of course, it's very handy, because our fingerprints don't look like, you know, the U.S. taxpayers, in essence, bailed out these fraudulent Swiss banks.

"But we did.

"And mind you, we did it again, secretly, through AIG.

"When AIG paid a whole bunch of not only Goldman Sachs, but foreign banks, including a very large Swiss bank a hundred cents on the dollar when they could have paid far less on the things called the collateral default swaps"

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13531
I agree with Krugman every once in a while too. But that doesn't mean I will accept his opinion on everything. I did not support the bailouts, but, lets face it, that kind of stuff is way more in line with Keynesianiam than it is Austrian economics.
 
Bush hasn't been President for over six years. Rather than cracking down on (legal) tax avoidance, the US could also revise its tax code to one that supports capital formation and profit making in the USA. Maybe we'd find that increases job formation as well
The Bootlickers' constant whining about government oppression is just an excuse for their parasite Masters to hide their loot and deport our jobs to countries with cheap slavish labor.

Claiming that the rich create jobs is like saying that vampires create blood.
 

Lukey

Senator
The Bootlickers' constant whining about government oppression is just an excuse for their parasite Masters to hide their loot and deport our jobs to countries with cheap slavish labor.

Claiming that the rich create jobs is like saying that vampires create blood.
Exactly where did I do that? What creates jobs is entrepreneurs and we've lost that entrepreneurial feeling under Bushbama:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2015/05/21/111890/1-million-missing-entrepreneurs/

Now for sure CAP has no clue how to bring it back but they at least get points for noticing the problem. The progressive big government agenda favors bigger businesses over smaller ones, by raising barriers to entry and incentives for small businesses to stay small rather than stick their head up and get the "whack a mole" treatment from the alphabet soup of government agencies whose sole purpose in life is creating impediments to small businesses getting bigger.

If you were really anything approaching a "sage of main street" you'd would never support a leviathan government that keeps its jack boot firmly pressed against the small (main street) businesses' neck.
 
I agree with Krugman every once in a while too. But that doesn't mean I will accept his opinion on everything. I did not support the bailouts, but, lets face it, that kind of stuff is way more in line with Keynesianiam than it is Austrian economics.
Austrians are one of nine schools capable of shedding light on the Subject of Economics, yet it's only the views of neoliberals (monetarists?) that ever seems to make it into mainstream discussion.

"Now, Austrians are even more pro-market than Neoclassical economists. And they're often in the same political camp as most Neoclassical economists. I just said most Neoclassical economists because not all Neoclassical economists are in favor of a free market, just think about people like Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz. Because Neoclassical economics has this theory called the theory of market failure, which actually can justify a wide range of government intervention.

"Insofar as Neoclassical economists defend the free market, their argument, to simplify, is that people know what they're doing and the government should just leave them alone.

"This is based on the assumption that people are totally rational and they can take care of themselves.

"However, the Austrians defend the free market in a very different way. They do not believe that human beings are rational agents like they are in Neoclassical economics.

"They emphasize that human beings have very limited rationality, and the world is very complex and uncertain. But then they go on to say that that's exactly why you cannot have government intervention, because the world is so complex and uncertain the government cannot possibly know what is better for other people, in the same way that no one really knows what is better for anyone else.

"So they defend the free market in that kind of way, which I find personally more convincing than the Neoclassical defense based on totally unrealistic assumptions of what human beings are like.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13849
 

Lukey

Senator
Austrians are one of nine schools capable of shedding light on the Subject of Economics, yet it's only the views of neoliberals (monetarists?) that ever seems to make it into mainstream discussion.

"Now, Austrians are even more pro-market than Neoclassical economists. And they're often in the same political camp as most Neoclassical economists. I just said most Neoclassical economists because not all Neoclassical economists are in favor of a free market, just think about people like Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz. Because Neoclassical economics has this theory called the theory of market failure, which actually can justify a wide range of government intervention.

"Insofar as Neoclassical economists defend the free market, their argument, to simplify, is that people know what they're doing and the government should just leave them alone.

"This is based on the assumption that people are totally rational and they can take care of themselves.

"However, the Austrians defend the free market in a very different way. They do not believe that human beings are rational agents like they are in Neoclassical economics.

"They emphasize that human beings have very limited rationality, and the world is very complex and uncertain. But then they go on to say that that's exactly why you cannot have government intervention, because the world is so complex and uncertain the government cannot possibly know what is better for other people, in the same way that no one really knows what is better for anyone else.

"So they defend the free market in that kind of way, which I find personally more convincing than the Neoclassical defense based on totally unrealistic assumptions of what human beings are like.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13849
Not sure about all that. Krugman and Stiglitz are most definitely NOT in favor of a "free market" (unless you are referring to stuff given to people for "free" in a Keynesian frenzy of government control of ever bigger slices of the economy).
 
Not sure about all that. Krugman and Stiglitz are most definitely NOT in favor of a "free market" (unless you are referring to stuff given to people for "free" in a Keynesian frenzy of government control of ever bigger slices of the economy).
I guess it depends on what you mean by "free market;" do you mean a market free of government regulation or a market free of undue influence by the richest individuals and corporations in society?
"Critics of laissez-faire policies have used the term to denote what they perceive as a misguided belief, or deliberate deception, that free markets provide the greatest possible equity and prosperity,[2] and that any interference with the market process decreases social well being.

"Users of the term include adherents of interventionist, mixed economy and protectionist positions,[3] as well as billionaires such as George Soros,[4] and economists such as Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz[5] and Paul Krugman.

"George Soros suggests that market fundamentalism includes the belief that the best interests in a given society are achieved by allowing its participants to pursue their own financial self-interest with no restraint or regulatory oversight.[1][6]

"Critics claim that in modern society with world-wide conglomerates, or even merely large companies, the individual has no protection against fraud nor harm caused by products that maximize income by imposing externalities on the individual consumer as well as society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_fundamentalism
 

Lukey

Senator
I guess it depends on what you mean by "free market;" do you mean a market free of government regulation or a market free of undue influence by the richest individuals and corporations in society?
"Critics of laissez-faire policies have used the term to denote what they perceive as a misguided belief, or deliberate deception, that free markets provide the greatest possible equity and prosperity,[2] and that any interference with the market process decreases social well being.

"Users of the term include adherents of interventionist, mixed economy and protectionist positions,[3] as well as billionaires such as George Soros,[4] and economists such as Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz[5] and Paul Krugman.

"George Soros suggests that market fundamentalism includes the belief that the best interests in a given society are achieved by allowing its participants to pursue their own financial self-interest with no restraint or regulatory oversight.[1][6]

"Critics claim that in modern society with world-wide conglomerates, or even merely large companies, the individual has no protection against fraud nor harm caused by products that maximize income by imposing externalities on the individual consumer as well as society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_fundamentalism
The only "free" market would be, well, you know, free. Of both government intervention and undue influence by the richest individuals and corporations. Big government drives big corporations to get even bigger. We're killing off economic opportunity for the masses in favor of a system that favors the elite bureaucrats (and shadow bureaucrats) and the biggest businesses, over main street businesses and small business entrepreneurs.
 
Big government drives big corporations to get even bigger. We're killing off economic opportunity for the masses in favor of a system that favors the elite bureaucrats (and shadow bureaucrats) and the biggest businesses, over main street businesses and small business entrepreneurs.
We are in nearly complete agreement about that^^^

I would suggest big corporations drive big government since I believe politics is largely the shadow big business casts on society. Certainly, small businesses in the US are being drowned in specious regulations designed to prevent them from ever competing with big business.

"As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.
 

Lukey

Senator
We are in nearly complete agreement about that^^^

I would suggest big corporations drive big government since I believe politics is largely the shadow big business casts on society. Certainly, small businesses in the US are being drowned in specious regulations designed to prevent them from ever competing with big business.

"As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.
I disagree. As regulation expands corporations get bigger in order to amortize the rising compliance costs over bigger market share. A more open, transparent market gives smaller, more nimble companies an edge over large bureaucratic corporations. But the current levels of regulation support the large bureaucratic companies as the smaller, more nimble businesses get snared in the regulatory morass and ultimately decide to give up and sell to a larger competitor. This is precisely what we have seen over the past decade and a half as the birth/death rate of new businesses illustrates:

Screen Shot 2015-05-06 at 10.45.17 AM.png
 
A more open, transparent market gives smaller, more nimble companies an edge over large bureaucratic corporations. But the current levels of regulation support the large bureaucratic companies as the smaller, more nimble businesses get snared in the regulatory morass and ultimately decide to give up and sell to a larger competitor. This is precisely what we have seen over the past decade and a half as the birth/death rate of new businesses
Are we disagreeing about whether big business bribed big government to create the regulatory morass that's created the current mortality rate of new US businesses?
 

Lukey

Senator
Are we disagreeing about whether big business bribed big government to create the regulatory morass that's created the current mortality rate of new US businesses?
Nope! We're kind of in a chicken and egg discussion. I'm saying every big government power grab makes bribing public officials more profitable, but as government grows it takes more and more money to do it so businesses get bigger and wealth gets more and more concentrated. One hand washes the other for sure, but it's government that has the authority to take the power from the markets, so that's where I see the process beginning.
 
Nope! We're kind of in a chicken and egg discussion. I'm saying every big government power grab makes bribing public officials more profitable, but as government grows it takes more and more money to do it so businesses get bigger and wealth gets more and more concentrated. One hand washes the other for sure, but it's government that has the authority to take the power from the markets, so that's where I see the process beginning.
Government has the monopoly of violence, and the willingness to use it. Changing those elected to control the monopoly might be a useful start:
"Another method, which supporters call clean money, clean elections, gives each candidate who chooses to participate a certain, set amount of money. In order to qualify for this money, the candidates must collect a specified number of signatures and small (usually $5) contributions.

"The candidates are not allowed to accept outside donations or to use their own personal money if they receive this public funding. Candidates receive matching funds, up to a limit, when they are outspent by privately funded candidates, attacked by independent expenditures, or their opponent benefits from independent expenditures.

"This is the primary difference between clean money public financing systems and the presidential campaign system, which many have called 'broken' because it provides no extra funds when candidates are attacked by 527s or other independent expenditure groups.

"Supporters claim that Clean Elections matching funds are so effective at leveling the playing field in Arizona that during the first full year of its implementation, disproportionate funding between candidates was a factor in only 2% of the races"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States#Clean_elections
 

Lukey

Senator
Government has the monopoly of violence, and the willingness to use it. Changing those elected to control the monopoly might be a useful start:
"Another method, which supporters call clean money, clean elections, gives each candidate who chooses to participate a certain, set amount of money. In order to qualify for this money, the candidates must collect a specified number of signatures and small (usually $5) contributions.

"The candidates are not allowed to accept outside donations or to use their own personal money if they receive this public funding. Candidates receive matching funds, up to a limit, when they are outspent by privately funded candidates, attacked by independent expenditures, or their opponent benefits from independent expenditures.

"This is the primary difference between clean money public financing systems and the presidential campaign system, which many have called 'broken' because it provides no extra funds when candidates are attacked by 527s or other independent expenditure groups.

"Supporters claim that Clean Elections matching funds are so effective at leveling the playing field in Arizona that during the first full year of its implementation, disproportionate funding between candidates was a factor in only 2% of the races"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States#Clean_elections
I'm all for that (campaign reform). Too many pandering pols in thrall to too many moneyed interests is a big part of the problem. When Lloyd Blankfein came out priasing Dodd Frank because it raised barriers of entry to investment banking, you know there's something seriously wrong with the process of governance...
 
Exactly where did I do that? What creates jobs is entrepreneurs and we've lost that entrepreneurial feeling under Bushbama:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2015/05/21/111890/1-million-missing-entrepreneurs/


never support a leviathan government that keeps its jack boot firmly pressed against the small (main street) businesses' neck.
Entrepreneurs are the proverbial "jack of all trades, master of none." The hereditary plutocracy encourages such limited people to take complete control of competing small businesses and to treat their employees like inanimate objects totally enabled by the owner.

In general, the anti-government propaganda masks a protective selfishness for such incompetent people and the classes above them. Government is supposed to empower and exert the will of the majority against conceited anti-social power freaks. Whether it does not, your greedy and psychotically obsessive idols only attack it because they fear it will become a champion of those they have a deep need to feel superior to, especially because they themselves are worthless predatory zombie parasites and nasty headcases.

No one has a right to own a business. If You Own a Man's Work, You Own the Man. Owners aren't earners. They are conceited nobodies. Your elitist system puts inferior people in superior positions.

Most of all, allowing any kind of birth privileges starts a ticking time bomb of built-in decadence and the collapse of society from above. This won't be a free world until the son of a millionaire has the same odds of becoming a blue-collar worker that the son of a blue-collar worker does.
 

Lukey

Senator
Entrepreneurs are the proverbial "jack of all trades, master of none." The hereditary plutocracy encourages such limited people to take complete control of competing small businesses and to treat their employees like inanimate objects totally enabled by the owner.

In general, the anti-government propaganda masks a protective selfishness for such incompetent people and the classes above them. Government is supposed to empower and exert the will of the majority against conceited anti-social power freaks. Whether it does not, your greedy and psychotically obsessive idols only attack it because they fear it will become a champion of those they have a deep need to feel superior to, especially because they themselves are worthless predatory zombie parasites and nasty headcases.

No one has a right to own a business. If You Own a Man's Work, You Own the Man. Owners aren't earners. They are conceited nobodies. Your elitist system puts inferior people in superior positions.

Most of all, allowing any kind of birth privileges starts a ticking time bomb of built-in decadence and the collapse of society from above. This won't be a free world until the son of a millionaire has the same odds of becoming a blue-collar worker that the son of a blue-collar worker does.
That's the Marxist viewpoint. I don't think America is going communist anytime soon. But good luck with your efforts to try...
 
Trailer-Park Republicans

Under our lopsided private power structure, consumers and job seekers only know what they are told by the predatory elite to think they know. On political and economic issues, Americans always speak in code and never know what they are really saying. Some busybody criticizing a member of his same class is really saying, "I love the bosses and want to contribute to my idols' humiliation of and extortion from those in my class. To do their work for them makes me feel like a Big Shot."
 
That's the Marxist viewpoint. I don't think America is going communist anytime soon. But good luck with your efforts to try...
Is that all you got, that everybody who doesn't toe the line of your private-sector dictatorship must be a Commie? Give that back, because it's not yours. You've stolen it from the billionaires. Besides, it's so simple-minded that it shows what a brain-dead flunky you've become after inhaling the boot polish of the Plutes Who Wear the Boots.

Let me confront the plutocratic pirate, not his parrot. Go fly away, squawking at fools who take Aynal-retentive yes-men seriously.
 

Lukey

Senator
Is that all you got, that everybody who doesn't toe the line of your private-sector dictatorship must be a Commie? Give that back, because it's not yours. You've stolen it from the billionaires. Besides, it's so simple-minded that it shows what a brain-dead flunky you've become after inhaling the boot polish of the Plutes Who Wear the Boots.

Let me confront the plutocratic pirate, not his parrot. Go fly away, squawking at fools who take Aynal-retentive yes-men seriously.

No one has a right to own a business. If You Own a Man's Work, You Own the Man. Owners aren't earners. They are conceited nobodies.

What was I thinking? Nothing Marxist in there whatsoever? My apologies, comrade...
 
This won't be a free world until the son of a millionaire has the same odds of becoming a blue-collar worker that the son of a blue-collar worker does.
Would a free world have any need of millionaires? If war and debt, which serve as the foundation of slavery, vanish from the page of time, do you think private fortunes would necessarily follow?
 
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