AIR GUITAR ECONOMICS Libertarians riding unicorns into the sunset, offering nothing but AIR GUITAR ECONOMICS. 3 times asked this and still no answer, just puke... http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-914397.html#p914397 Don't touch the wealth of the wealthy. We hear that message, dozens of times each month, disguised in various ways by the Corporate media. We hear it despite the fact that wealth inequality has reached a greater extreme in our societies than at any time since the last revolutionary cycle, nearly three hundred years ago. The Top 0.1% now hoard as much wealth as the bottom-90% combined. http://www.bullionbullscanada.com/i...6691-forget-about-income-inequality-bloomberg And anything that challenges the corporate media, is ignorant folk economics - .
Air guitars and invisible chains. The great trick is that of our enslavement. We do not know it. We do not see it. Our views are the product of master storytellers. Our lives are scripted from birth to death. We are conditioned to attack each other to ensure disunity and sap any energy that would otherwise be turned towards the elites whose voracious hunger for the fruits of our labour can never be quenched. "Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing." ~ Philip K. Dick [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A[/youtube]
I've trawled through a lot of smug, dogmatic politics on this forum - hell, I even read most of the Bernie thread... But that video made it all worth it
Yes. Yes I am. This is my favourite SS thread ever. "Best interests of the individual" HA! "Heart!" Double HA! The free market has a heart? And it cares about me? Wow, I can't even. Let's concede: the individual has that individual's best interests at heart. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit-utopia Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, underpants. But don't you love it when they're so sure of themselves?
@HMT, I can send you some links that will educate you if you would care to be educated. The left have won the battle for the hearts and minds of the general population, they have done it by spreading their message of propaganda through the power of the State. The free market and capitalism are not the bogeymen that those with vested interests in wanting to have control over your lives would have you believe. Like I said, I can send you links to a wealth of information when you are ready.
@fiatphoney, I've already answered you, it's just you don't like the answer. I've also pointed you in the direction of another thread so I can avoid having to repeat myself and type everything again, but you won't read it.
What, no abuse Shiney? Have I done something to offend you? I'll gladly have a look at your links - it may amaze you to learn that not everyone who disagrees with (some of) your opinions is a rabid partisan for the 'other side.' In fact this preoccupation with sides is part of my problem with most ultra-conservatives... and most ultra-liberals too! Not everything is a question of left or right. That is a crass simplification that should be beneath someone of your intelligence. But I doubt anything ever written will convince me that the 'free market' (if such a thing has ever existed, or could ever exist) has anyone's interests at heart, or has any opinions or predilections whatsoever, for what I hope are obvious reasons. For that matter nor do the laws of physics, nor the Sistine Chapel, nor teh Internet. Nor 'family values.' And reading your propaganda may be an education, or it may be an edifying brush with indoctrination. Maybe both, if I am lucky. I read pretty widely, and one of the things I appreciate about the Conservative discourse (at least in the US) is the range of opinions and disagreements aired.. a far cry from whatever passes for intra-party political debate in this country anyway. But there is a turtle-load of tripe peddled at all extremities of every debate and I tend to ignore almost all of it. And that includes an ideological insistence that any construct has the answers to all societal issues. Such arguments always rest on faith.. um.. fundamentally... and faith is something you either have or you don't. So what is fundamentally self-evident to the believer, is potentially, to the non-believer, a pile of fundamentalist bullshit coming out of a fundamentalist's fundament.
My advocacy for the free market is not intended to offer a solution to all of society's issues, as you said such an ideology doesn't exist. What the free market does offer is the best opportunity for everyone to meet their needs (individuals incapable of making decisions in their own self-interest aside), as opposed to the managed economy where a select group of individuals have assumed the authority to make decisions on our behalf, these decisions are often wrong, benefit vested interests at the expense of others and destroy our freedom. For further reading I suggest you visit The Cato Institute cato.org, The Ludwig Von Mises Institute mises.org, there is an Austrian Economics forum at Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/ as well as a libertarian one and if you really want to get into reading material that is opposed to the State - an Anarcho-Capitalist forum there as well. The Mises Academy academy.mises.org has many short courses on topics such as Austrian Economics, libertarianism, capitalism etc. For now I just want to ask you this: Who would you trust to make decisions that are in your best interest, yourself or someone else?
There you go, fixed it for you. Imagine if Adam Smith had the giant Gulliver arrive on the scene, or thousands of Gullivers. The 'Wealth of Nations' would be a very different book. The invisible hand that controls markets (perhaps for the benefit of society under an honest gold standard that naturally regulates international trade and a nil income tax world) would be replaced by the giants hand. The challenge today is how to ensure that our world doesn't become a corporate Gulliver clan paradise, whilst the natives are trampled over. Tozak stated elsewhere: 'We are taught to compare the wealth of each generation by how much trivial junk and nick knacks they have. Each generation however works longer hours, has less kids, has less free time, has less freedom and takes longer to pay off their mortgages. We have now a system that is so totally dependent on the status quo so much so we have lost many transition technologies. We have so many dependencies now that any disruption to global resources will see millions and potentially billions of people perish one way or another.' http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-914451.html#p914451 GDP may be a measure that the RBA uses, but we the people need an entirely different measure of our standard of living.
As far as I understand it Adam Smith's invisible hand is actually the actions of millions of individuals acting in their best self-interest ie engaging in economic activity in order to meet their needs and desires. You want to maintain the shackles on the "invisible hand" by replacing one managed economy, which has given rise to all the problems you and tozak and phransusku and Bernie Sanders and yennus and bordsilver and nearly everyone else on this forum rail against and replace it with another managed economy, an economy where the government grants favours to groups that meet your economic criteria. How do you think these crony-capitalists managed to get into such a powerful market position? Because those that made the decisions on our behalf either thought they had the best interests of individuals at heart or they were corrupt and legislated market regulations to benefit themselves. The free market is exactly that - free. It's free for anyone who aspires to produce any product designed to meet any need, it's free from the corrupt intentions of the State and it's beggar landlords. It's free and it exists because we as individuals desire it. It's in the Uber ride you catch, it's in the market gardens, it's in the "cashies" paid to the plumber, the beer economy, it's in the Apple iPhone that allows us to transact and engage with others, it's in the 15 months interest free that credit providers offer to entice you away from your current Cc provider, it's in the dead shelf at Coles where you can pick up cheap cheese that is 2 days away from its use by date and take it home and enjoy it at your convenience months later, it's in the hearts and genetic makeup of every individual who craves independence. And then we have those who are opposed to it and want to make decisions on behalf of others.
Corporations are a monster created by your precious government. Keep handing them more power over you and see your standard of living drop.
You mean granting favours to the people of the nation - we the people. What kind of a stooge are you. Economics serves an objective. If economic policy is not serving the - we the people - then the people are defeated and are slaves to their captors. Believe it or not corporations ought to serve the interests of a nation, and not be a parasite upon it so that elites can collect a nation's wealth through Panama. A society manages crimes with jail, so yes corporations need to be managed. Even a bail-in is about transferring wealth from citizen savers to the corporate bandits leaving a shell company behind in ashes. A manufactured emergency by design to steal wealth - YES we the people need to manage/punish that! About your little riff on the air guitar, using Coles and cheap cheese, do you actually have anything to say? Or are we just having a good ol' time rocking the unicorn. 'The free market demands Coles to not sell third grade produce at first rate prices, because we demand it! Whilst the best grades are exported. Yep the fantasy continues... Here comes the invisible hand to save the day, not to dispense heavy metals and Hep A for corporate profits in a captured market.' How dare 'we the people' be the foremost economic objective in an economy. Which ironically is the only way for free and fair markets to be established for millions of individuals. Restraining corporations IS the only way to achieve 'free markets' for a free people.
