Politics and Tea

I think that this quote from Murray Rothbard nicely follows from the below post: When capital investment takes place in the free market, it deprives no one of consumption goods; for those save who voluntarily choose investment over some present consumption. No one is required to sacrifice present consumption who does not wish to do so. As a result, the standard of living of everyone rises continually and smoothly as investment increases. But a Soviet or other system of compulsory investment lowers the standard of living of almost everyone, certainly in the near future. As Chris Brown points out in his article at http://mises.org/story/3214, this can also be applied to Obama's big plans for job creation "investment".

From the Economist: "A deadly mix of falling prices and high leverage could foment a “debt-deflation” of the type first described by Irving Fisher, an American economist, in 1933. In this schema, debt-laden firms and consumers rush to repay loans as credit dries up. That hurts demand and leads to price cuts. The deflation in turn increases the real cost of debt. It also means that real interest rates can’t be negative, and so are undesirably high. That spurs yet more repayment so that, in Fisher’s words, the “liquidation defeats itself.” Fisher’s theory is of more than just academic interest. Recent lending surveys by the Federal Reserve and the ECB showed a larger share of banks tightened their lending criteria in October than in July. Such is the concern in America that on November 12th regulators said they would scrutinise the dividend policies of banks that did not increase lending." What? scrutinise the dividend policies of banks that don't increase lending?????? Wha...

This is something that I posted to my facebook like a week ago, and I thought that I should have it here to, for reference: First, I remain respectful and deferent to my leaders. There were a few points of interest I found in this interview that I just couldn't let slip by without demonstrating my distaste for the philosophy of economic control that Mr. Obama seems to so obviously espouse (obvious to me anyway... you'll have to judge for yourself). So here I put those points that he made in quotations, and following I put what I think he may mean (based on the fundamental assumptions of the philosophy from which his propositions follow). Hopefully I'm WAY off on my translations. Hopefully he was speaking a language that I don't really understand and I'm totally 100% wrong in my analysis. Because if I am not, perhaps we are destined to see another FDR rather than another Lincoln (to use the two presidents that Mr. Obama is being compared to). Who, even Berkeley socia...

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e081027 Why do I read this stuff? It just freaks me out.

I mean, I always knew that waitresses were smarter than congress, but this one REALLY proves it. Thi s is from a cnn.com article, and she is a waitress at a mom-n-pop restaurant near an auto plant... only this plant is Honda, which would actually stand to gain big time from GM bankrupcy. Anyway, here's the quote :) "I don't think they should bail them out because ... obviously something's not right in the way they're running their business, and why should the American people have to bail them out if they can't figure out how to do it right?" September Quinn, the busy waitress, said after the lunch rush at the Inn Between. She holds the unions just as accountable as the companies for the industry's problems. "People agree with the unions because the workers want to be backed on everything, but then again, there aren't people striving to do their job better," said Quinn, whose father works at the nonunion Honda plant. "They've just...

I went to log in to the AllAroundDanville.com forum today, and found out that I have been banned for life from participation in the forum. I had only written 1 post. It was in regards to a thread about price gouging which had been started back when gas was over $4 a gallon. So I wrote: "why no talk of price-gouging now? maybe because that is ridiculous. its just market forces. I'm pretty sure gas station owners would still be charging $4.25 if they thought they could get away with it."

In discerning economic theory, sometimes common sense turns out to be all you need.

Noam Chomsky's view of the Democratic nature of Capitalism: "Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be establishedat every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy" Ludwig Von Mises's view of the Democratic nature of Capitalism: ...

I read yesterday that the Philosopher Seneca once said "Good luck is preparation meets opportunity." I don't think that I could have read that before the past week and really understand the implications of it. I happened to read it in a book called The Choice which I was browsing through at Barnes and Noble (while on a psuedo-date with Drew). The author of the book connected Seneca's idea to his own idea: that if you understand the fundamental laws governing the various aspects of life, then you will be very well prepared, and will have enough knowledge, to navigate pretty much everything that you might come across. And basically everyone has the brain power to do this. This very gracefully follows from my last post. And its really been making me think lately. Why is it that everyone wants to say something new, rather than go back and try to understand what those who have come before us have already figured out. Why is it that we are willing to revisit something when...