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Re: Haven - cutting welfare
by The E » Thu May 19, 2016 2:26 am
The E Admiral Posts: 2704 Joined: Tue May 07, 2013 1:28 pm Location: Meerbusch, Germany	saber964 wrote:It took WW2, when 25% of the population was in the army, to heal the depression 25% unemplyment rate. Note the entire US Military during WWII never exceeded 10% of the population. The US military reached just under 12.78 million in 1944 verses a US population of 132 Million in 1940. Something about these two sentences does not add up.
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Re: Haven - cutting welfare
by darrell » Thu May 19, 2016 3:43 am
darrell Rear Admiral Posts: 1390 Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2012 3:57 am	Tenshinai wrote: darrell wrote:What do you think consumption analysis is? In simple terms, consumption analysis is comparison of goods sold. Milton freedman won the nobel prize for proving the following First of all i think you need to realise that economics is NOT a hard science. Essentially you CANNOT truly prove anything about it, and theoretics is only worth as much as it can be applied. However, even completely theoretical work can still hold great value. Friedman was awarded for the analysis, not for any supposed end result of that analysis. And once you went from theory to practice, Friedman starts loosing glamour very quickly. Many things he proclaimed or was convinced of was in fact bullshit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-eco ... ted_States However, in recent years several large studies have found that vertical intergenerational mobility is lower, not higher, in the US than in comparable countries. Where do you find the most socioeconomic mobility? Oh right, the less capitalist ones, like found in say, Scandinavia. Ooops says mr Friedman(well he would if he wasn´t dead and would admit that he was wrong, which he usually didn´t). Then his constant insistence on somehow making the state apart from the rest of the economy, often in terms suggesting a parasite, completely ignoring that is not how it works. Even dictators ripping their nations off left right and center interact "better" with their nations than Friedman supposed. The almighty free market myth. It has been debunked so many times it´s just sad anyone actually still believes it exists. Friedman generally sucked at making real world economic predictions. Guess why. Because his work dealt with theory, not reality. And some of those theories were not even based on reality. He also had an inherent distrust in governments that had no correlation to reality, making him repeatedly and doggedly reject successes by government interference, either excusing them or just pretending they never happened. And as one article wrote about him when he died: "And while he opposed rent control, public education and Social Security, he promoted government vouchers to help people buy housing, education and medical care." Basically rejecting his own theory when it was for real. The EXTREMELY failed idea that self-interest will always lead to the best possible outcome in economics... This one is just a total headscratcher, it´s simply amazing that anyone can consider this for real. The basic thing you need to realise is that Friedman did his analysis in opposition to Keynes rather than as something starting from neutral. Something often avoided however is to mention the fact that Keynesian economics was actually never adhered to, yet is blamed for failures that were failures in implementation rather than in theory. This all by itself means parts of Friedman´s assumptions and supposed facts are simply wrong. And if nothing else, the fact that Friedman style economics was what led to the disaster that Russia was under Jeltsin, very blatantly tells us that it is just as flawed as what it was written to oppose. And everyone KNOWS that you can´t just make the claims you did. There is still an ongoing debate as to whether ANYTHING Friedman stated was true at all, not to mention if anything of what he based the analysis on was true OR even relevant. Seriously, i have a professor in national economics as my cousin in law, i´ve heard just about every variation on your delusions that you can think of. As another article states about him: "To be sure, as with all historical analysis, there is always room for discussion, but Friedman’s arguments rest upon one interpretation of ‘facts’ that are usually incomplete or a blatant misrepresentation of what actually happened." darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by giving stimulus payments, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy. That is so stupidly monolithic statement that i´m not even sure i WANT to bother refuting it as the insanity it is. darrell wrote:Bushe's "stimulus" payments didn't fix the economy. Well duh, and where did he place the money eh? Oh right, most of it was channeled towards the richest 30% or so. Right, the people who don´t actually need it get extra money, so tell me again why exactly it is a surprise that they DONT spend more? If you want so to add money to an economy in such a way that the economy as a whole improves, you put the money in the hands of people that will actually use it NOW, not have it add to their offshore bank account. darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by bailing out a company, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy. bailing out GM or the big banks didn't fix the economy. Right... Do you even understand that THAT is NOT the same thing Friedman was arguing about with his analysis? Not to mention how you seem just spout the basic phrases and don´t seem to have the slightest understanding of them. Bailing out a crashing company does not hurt "natural consumption". It does some OTHER negative things, but that is not one of them. Seriously, if you have to argue so hotly about something, could you not at least PLEASE learn what you are arguing about? And in regards to USA, in case you didn´t realise, bailing out GM and the big banks was not supposed to "fix the economy", it was supposed to make sure the economy didn´t cease to exist completely or cause a crash that was magnitudes WORSE. I personally detest that kind of actions, but it was very VERY necessary. It could have been done far better, but not doing it would have ended up with an economic disaster that makes either the "great depression" or the more recent crash look like children playing in the sandbox compared to global nuclear war. The OBVIOUS basic way of doing it better would have been to bail them out in return for equal value shares in the companies. But oh noes, can´t do that because ideological blinders says government mustn´t own or run businesses. Which as has been very clearly shown here in the last 20 years is just a bullshit excuse, because companies and businesses privatized did NOT end up working better, in fact more often than not, they ended up LESS functional. darrell wrote:anytime a government mandates a company do something, which is what most government regulations are, it huts the ability of a company to manufacture goods, hurting the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which reduces the GDP and hurts the economy. darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by price fixing, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy. This is what FDR's policies did, mandating higher wages and prices of goods. And again with your blatant lack of understanding, i mean seriously? FDRs policies essentially loaned from the future to kickstart the economy at the time. Was it effective? Reasonably yes. Was it perfect? Hardly. Were all policies a good idea? Hell NO! They still greatly raised economic activity, which is the very basis of getting things working. Which by itself makes your whining about "natural consumption" completely irrelevant, because the artificial consumption raised economic activity more in 2 years than what natural consumption could ever have managed by itself in 10 years, quite possibly much more still. darrell wrote:A. If a government fixes a price above the free market price, fewer people will buy the product, meaning there will be surplusses and fewer goods bought. sigh Only true under specific conditions. Just take a look at the extreme taxes on tobacco here, compare when the taxes were raised and how that affected consumption. More often than not, it didn´t, or at least nowhere near actual total cost. Instead, people spent more on the same goods instead. This is also not an isolated matter, just one where it´s blatantly obvious. Just one more nail in the coffin of "the rational economic man". darrell wrote:B. If a government fixes the price below the free market price, fewer companies will produce the product, and those that produce the product won't produce as much, meaning there will be shortages and fewer goods purchased. Completely untrue and utter bullshit. As can be seen in the real world by how the memory production companies have repeatedly in the last 15 years maintained high production even to the point where they were selling them at a loss. In part due to S. Korean and Taiwanese government fiddling(because Samsung(among a few others) is a fricking giant of a corporation). darrell wrote:C. This includes wages. for example, every time the minimum wage is increased, companies react by laying off workers, increasing unemployment. Again, another complete lie. Lets see, how about we take as an example how some companies and regions here in Sweden are trialling 30 hour workweeks(instead of the otherwise standard 40 hour week), some even with workers retaining FULL wages. Ie, effectively an increase of 33%! The results in the last decade? Mixed but none at all leading to layoffs, and in some places, it has even resulted in positive effects, especially in jobs where there´s a lot of straining work, like nursing jobs. darrell wrote:When Ronald Regan reduced government regulations on businesses in addition to taxes, it started both the longest and the best economic growth since the US's founding in 1776. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAHAH!!!!! Right, now i know you´re either trolling me or you´re completely and utterly ignorant. That statement is so far from the truth that it´s not even ridiculous or funny. Reaganomics started the epic decline of US economics and the nearly chronic insolvency of the US state. Clinton managed to get things back in the black at least to some extent for a while but it´s uncertain if that would have held even without president shrubbery coming along and making SURE USA ended up crashing and burning. darrell wrote:Anytime a government mandates anything in the economy, it hurts the economy. Yeah right, you keep believing that. Anyone praising Reaganomics cannot be taken serious anyway. as typical with most liberals that are loosing an argument you first you change the subject. Then claim that my facts are meaningless. Then you say that you are correct without any facts to back them up. Then you start calling me names. First change of subject, your study does not state POSITIVE socioeconomic mobility. Socioeconomic mobility also happens when someone gets poorer. Add to this that socioeconomic mobility is not an economic indicator. If everyone gets richer, than the economy grows, yet there is ZERO economic mobility. Second change of subject, dictators ripping off their country has no bearing on how hard it is to run a business there. Besides, I wouldn't use dictatorships as your example. Most dictatorships have the majority of their population in poverty and their economy is in sad shape, which if used as proof is more likely to prove Keynesian economics wrong and Friedman right. You claim that the free market myth has been debunked may times. I notice that you haven't produced one of these times. Could that be because you can't? If Friedman had an "inherent distrust in governments" as you claimed, then he wouldn't have been Ronald Regan's economic adviser while he was president. The fact that self interest beats government control was proved by the pilgrims. They landed in Massachusetts in November 1620. They has 2 hard years under the mayflower compact, when the colony leaders controlled the economy, and dozens died every year. It wasn't until the compact was thrown away and self interest ruled that the pilgrams prospered, with the first thanksgiving celebrated in 1623. When the government controlled the economy in Russia as Kaine's advocated, the economy was stagnant. Once Communism fell and Russia went to a more free market economy, it started took off, and actually proves Freedman's economics. Same for china, there was little economic growth in Communist china, but massive economic growth after a free market economy was instituted. Every time that an economy gets more government control, the worse it gets, every time government control lessens, the better the economy does. Take a look at the poverty levels vs government regulations. In the last 50 years, almost without exception, anytime government regulations increased, the percentage of people in poverty increased either that year or the next year. Every time the number of government regulations decreased, the percentage of people in poverty decreased. You are incorrect about congresses economic stimulus during the bush years. 100% of bushes stimulus money went to people below the median income level, with the vast majority of it going to those in poverty. Take a look at chili and other companies that have privatized things like social security. it works there far better than government run social security here. how do you know that FDR's policy shortened the depression? Prove your source. The depression didn't end until after most of his policies were revoked. looks like you need a refresher course of economics 101. ANYTIME you raise prices, fewer people buy. Some things are more "elastic" than others, though. Double the price of tobacco or salt, for example, and consumption does go down, if only by a few percent, which will be considered an inelastic product. Double the price of a luxury product such as lobster, and very few people will purchase it, such a product is "highly elastic." by the same token anytime you lower prices, fewer goods will be produced. On your Swedish example, you said it is a trial, only some companies and some regions. It apparently hasn't been proved yet. Also, your words, only "some" of the workers retained full "wages." OTHERS HAD A PAY CUT. Add the fact that most wages are per hour, it is salaries that are per week, month or year. So they can easily say that "wages" remain the same, as someone making a wage of $20 per hour will still be making $20 per hour, even though his salary has gone down with the decrease in hours. Have you ever heard of the FDIC. (Federal Deposit Insurance Company) If the big banks had failed, the federal government in the form of the FDIC would have stabilized things. The bank bailout was not to save the economy, but to reduce headaches in Washington. Memory and other computer products are not an example of the government fixing the price, but better technology lowering the price. About every 2 years they figure out how to make IC's cheaper. Company A buys the new machine and can produce IC X at half the price. It goes to full production and sells IC X at 75% the original price. Notice that this is not the government controlling the price, but the free market. I notice that it is you that brought Regan into it, so be it. Available data indicates that Reaganomics is far better than it's successors. Take a look at GDP. From 1981 through 1989 the US GDP went up. This is the only continuous 8 year period that this happened since record keeping started. What is more, adjusted for inflation, GDP went up every year of the Regan presidency even when adjusted for inflation. When adjusted for inflation, GDP was highest in 1989. At no time during either bush presidency, the Clinton presidency or the Obama presidency was the GDP higher than it was under Regan. Last edited by darrell on Thu May 19, 2016 4:02 am, edited 1 time in total. <><><><><><><><><><><><> Logic: an organized way to go wrong, with confidence.
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Tenshinai wrote:
darrell wrote:What do you think consumption analysis is? In simple terms, consumption analysis is comparison of goods sold. Milton freedman won the nobel prize for proving the following

First of all i think you need to realise that economics is NOT a hard science. Essentially you CANNOT truly prove anything about it, and theoretics is only worth as much as it can be applied. However, even completely theoretical work can still hold great value.

Friedman was awarded for the analysis, not for any supposed end result of that analysis.

And once you went from theory to practice, Friedman starts loosing glamour very quickly.
Many things he proclaimed or was convinced of was in fact bullshit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-eco ... ted_States
However, in recent years several large studies have found that vertical intergenerational mobility is lower, not higher, in the US than in comparable countries.

Where do you find the most socioeconomic mobility? Oh right, the less capitalist ones, like found in say, Scandinavia.

*Ooops* says mr Friedman(well he would if he wasn´t dead and would admit that he was wrong, which he usually didn´t).

Then his constant insistence on somehow making the state apart from the rest of the economy, often in terms suggesting a parasite, completely ignoring that is not how it works.

Even dictators ripping their nations off left right and center interact "better" with their nations than Friedman supposed.

The almighty free market myth. It has been debunked so many times it´s just sad anyone actually still believes it exists.

Friedman generally sucked at making real world economic predictions. Guess why.
Because his work dealt with theory, not reality. And some of those theories were not even based on reality.

He also had an inherent distrust in governments that had no correlation to reality, making him repeatedly and doggedly reject successes by government interference, either excusing them or just pretending they never happened.

And as one article wrote about him when he died: "And while he opposed rent control, public education and Social Security, he promoted government vouchers to help people buy housing, education and medical care."
Basically rejecting his own theory when it was for real.

The EXTREMELY failed idea that self-interest will always lead to the best possible outcome in economics... This one is just a total headscratcher, it´s simply amazing that anyone can consider this for real.

The basic thing you need to realise is that Friedman did his analysis in opposition to Keynes rather than as something starting from neutral.

Something often avoided however is to mention the fact that Keynesian economics was actually never adhered to, yet is blamed for failures that were failures in implementation rather than in theory.
This all by itself means parts of Friedman´s assumptions and supposed facts are simply wrong.

And if nothing else, the fact that Friedman style economics was what led to the disaster that Russia was under Jeltsin, very blatantly tells us that it is just as flawed as what it was written to oppose.

And everyone KNOWS that you can´t just make the claims you did. There is still an ongoing debate as to whether ANYTHING Friedman stated was true at all, not to mention if anything of what he based the analysis on was true OR even relevant.

Seriously, i have a professor in national economics as my cousin in law, i´ve heard just about every variation on your delusions that you can think of.

As another article states about him:
"To be sure, as with all historical analysis, there is always room for discussion, but Friedman’s arguments rest upon one interpretation of ‘facts’ that are usually incomplete or a blatant misrepresentation of what actually happened."

darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by giving stimulus payments, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy.

That is so stupidly monolithic statement that i´m not even sure i WANT to bother refuting it as the insanity it is.

darrell wrote:Bushe's "stimulus" payments didn't fix the economy.

Well duh, and where did he place the money eh?
Oh right, most of it was channeled towards the richest 30% or so. Right, the people who don´t actually need it get extra money, so tell me again why exactly it is a surprise that they DONT spend more?

If you want so to add money to an economy in such a way that the economy as a whole improves, you put the money in the hands of people that will actually use it NOW, not have it add to their offshore bank account.

darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by bailing out a company, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy. bailing out GM or the big banks didn't fix the economy.

Right... Do you even understand that THAT is NOT the same thing Friedman was arguing about with his analysis?

Not to mention how you seem just spout the basic phrases and don´t seem to have the slightest understanding of them.

Bailing out a crashing company does not hurt "natural consumption". It does some OTHER negative things, but that is not one of them.
Seriously, if you have to argue so hotly about something, could you not at least PLEASE learn what you are arguing about?

And in regards to USA, in case you didn´t realise, bailing out GM and the big banks was not supposed to "fix the economy", it was supposed to make sure the economy didn´t cease to exist completely or cause a crash that was magnitudes WORSE.

I personally detest that kind of actions, but it was very VERY necessary. It could have been done far better, but not doing it would have ended up with an economic disaster that makes either the "great depression" or the more recent crash look like children playing in the sandbox compared to global nuclear war.

The OBVIOUS basic way of doing it better would have been to bail them out in return for equal value shares in the companies.
But oh noes, can´t do that because ideological blinders says government mustn´t own or run businesses.

Which as has been very clearly shown here in the last 20 years is just a bullshit excuse, because companies and businesses privatized did NOT end up working better, in fact more often than not, they ended up LESS functional.

darrell wrote:anytime a government mandates a company do something, which is what most government regulations are, it huts the ability of a company to manufacture goods, hurting the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which reduces the GDP and hurts the economy.

darrell wrote:anytime a government tries to fix the economy by price fixing, it huts the the natural use or "consumption" of goods, which hurts the economy. This is what FDR's policies did, mandating higher wages and prices of goods.

And again with your blatant lack of understanding, i mean seriously?

FDRs policies essentially loaned from the future to kickstart the economy at the time.
Was it effective? Reasonably yes.
Was it perfect? Hardly.
Were all policies a good idea? Hell NO!

They still greatly raised economic activity, which is the very basis of getting things working. Which by itself makes your whining about "natural consumption" completely irrelevant, because the artificial consumption raised economic activity more in 2 years than what natural consumption could ever have managed by itself in 10 years, quite possibly much more still.

darrell wrote:A. If a government fixes a price above the free market price, fewer people will buy the product, meaning there will be surplusses and fewer goods bought.

*sigh*

Only true under specific conditions.
Just take a look at the extreme taxes on tobacco here, compare when the taxes were raised and how that affected consumption.
More often than not, it didn´t, or at least nowhere near actual total cost. Instead, people spent more on the same goods instead.

This is also not an isolated matter, just one where it´s blatantly obvious. Just one more nail in the coffin of "the rational economic man".

darrell wrote:B. If a government fixes the price below the free market price, fewer companies will produce the product, and those that produce the product won't produce as much, meaning there will be shortages and fewer goods purchased.

Completely untrue and utter bullshit.
As can be seen in the real world by how the memory production companies have repeatedly in the last 15 years maintained high production even to the point where they were selling them at a loss.
In part due to S. Korean and Taiwanese government fiddling(because Samsung(among a few others) is a fricking giant of a corporation).

darrell wrote:C. This includes wages. for example, every time the minimum wage is increased, companies react by laying off workers, increasing unemployment.

Again, another complete lie.

Lets see, how about we take as an example how some companies and regions here in Sweden are trialling 30 hour workweeks(instead of the otherwise standard 40 hour week), some even with workers retaining FULL wages. Ie, effectively an increase of 33%!

The results in the last decade? Mixed but none at all leading to layoffs, and in some places, it has even resulted in positive effects, especially in jobs where there´s a lot of straining work, like nursing jobs.

darrell wrote:When Ronald Regan reduced government regulations on businesses in addition to taxes, it started both the longest and the best economic growth since the US's founding in 1776.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAHAH!!!!!

Right, now i know you´re either trolling me or you´re completely and utterly ignorant.

That statement is so far from the truth that it´s not even ridiculous or funny.

Reaganomics started the epic decline of US economics and the nearly chronic insolvency of the US state.

Clinton managed to get things back in the black at least to some extent for a while but it´s uncertain if that would have held even without president shrubbery coming along and making SURE USA ended up crashing and burning.

darrell wrote:Anytime a government mandates anything in the economy, it hurts the economy.

Yeah right, you keep believing that. Anyone praising Reaganomics cannot be taken serious anyway.

as typical with most liberals that are loosing an argument you first you change the subject. Then claim that my facts are meaningless. Then you say that you are correct without any facts to back them up. Then you start calling me names.

First change of subject, your study does not state POSITIVE socioeconomic mobility. Socioeconomic mobility also happens when someone gets poorer. Add to this that socioeconomic mobility is not an economic indicator. If everyone gets richer, than the economy grows, yet there is ZERO economic mobility.

Second change of subject, dictators ripping off their country has no bearing on how hard it is to run a business there. Besides, I wouldn't use dictatorships as your example. Most dictatorships have the majority of their population in poverty and their economy is in sad shape, which if used as proof is more likely to prove Keynesian economics wrong and Friedman right.

You claim that the free market myth has been debunked may times. I notice that you haven't produced one of these times. Could that be because you can't?

If Friedman had an "inherent distrust in governments" as you claimed, then he wouldn't have been Ronald Regan's economic adviser while he was president.

The fact that self interest beats government control was proved by the pilgrims. They landed in Massachusetts in November 1620. They has 2 hard years under the mayflower compact, when the colony leaders controlled the economy, and dozens died every year. It wasn't until the compact was thrown away and self interest ruled that the pilgrams prospered, with the first thanksgiving celebrated in 1623.

When the government controlled the economy in Russia as Kaine's advocated, the economy was stagnant. Once Communism fell and Russia went to a more free market economy, it started took off, and actually proves Freedman's economics.

Same for china, there was little economic growth in Communist china, but massive economic growth after a free market economy was instituted.

Every time that an economy gets more government control, the worse it gets, every time government control lessens, the better the economy does. Take a look at the poverty levels vs government regulations. In the last 50 years, almost without exception, anytime government regulations increased, the percentage of people in poverty increased either that year or the next year. Every time the number of government regulations decreased, the percentage of people in poverty decreased.

You are incorrect about congresses economic stimulus during the bush years. 100% of bushes stimulus money went to people below the median income level, with the vast majority of it going to those in poverty.

Take a look at chili and other companies that have privatized things like social security. it works there far better than government run social security here.

how do you know that FDR's policy shortened the depression? Prove your source. The depression didn't end until after most of his policies were revoked.

looks like you need a refresher course of economics 101. ANYTIME you raise prices, fewer people buy. Some things are more "elastic" than others, though. Double the price of tobacco or salt, for example, and consumption does go down, if only by a few percent, which will be considered an inelastic product. Double the price of a luxury product such as lobster, and very few people will purchase it, such a product is "highly elastic." by the same token anytime you lower prices, fewer goods will be produced.

On your Swedish example, you said it is a trial, only some companies and some regions. It apparently hasn't been proved yet.

Also, your words, only "some" of the workers retained full "wages." OTHERS HAD A PAY CUT.

Add the fact that most wages are per hour, it is salaries that are per week, month or year. So they can easily say that "wages" remain the same, as someone making a wage of $20 per hour will still be making $20 per hour, even though his salary has gone down with the decrease in hours.

Have you ever heard of the FDIC. (Federal Deposit Insurance Company) If the big banks had failed, the federal government in the form of the FDIC would have stabilized things. The bank bailout was not to save the economy, but to reduce headaches in Washington.

Memory and other computer products are not an example of the government fixing the price, but better technology lowering the price. About every 2 years they figure out how to make IC's cheaper. Company A buys the new machine and can produce IC X at half the price. It goes to full production and sells IC X at 75% the original price. Notice that this is not the government controlling the price, but the free market.

I notice that it is you that brought Regan into it, so be it. Available data indicates that Reaganomics is far better than it's successors. Take a look at GDP. From 1981 through 1989 the US GDP went up. This is the only continuous 8 year period that this happened since record keeping started. What is more, adjusted for inflation, GDP went up every year of the Regan presidency even when adjusted for inflation. When adjusted for inflation, GDP was highest in 1989. At no time during either bush presidency, the Clinton presidency or the Obama presidency was the GDP higher than it was under Regan.

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