Ponderable

espola said:
If you had read much of his excrement in the deleted site, you would see his criticism of others' knowledge of finance to be ironically humorous.
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Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
 
Wez said:
Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
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It's more fundamental than that -- Izzy can't even compute interest rates.
 
Wez said:
That's weird, I'm onboard with the DNC and I'm very far from being a Socialist. No other Dems that I've spoken to are for Socialism. You may want to revisit your source on this sound bite, it doesn't appear to be true at all.
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Spoken like a true socialist.
 
Wez said:
I've seen this criticism from you before, you tend to claim someone doesn't "get finance", when they disagree with you. It speaks more about you then your target.
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Your alignment with such cluelessness is a little confusing given that you supposedly work in finance.
 
Wez said:
Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
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All I have to do is ask you if you agree with government bailouts as I have done in the past. I believe you are against bailouts as are libertarians. Having said that, I am glad to point north to Canada for a comparative example of an economy that is more ideal then the U.S. in it that they don't do bailouts. They have other challenges in their economy (recessions) but they've never had a government caused financial crisis like the U.S. The only thing fading is your understanding of what you've stood for in previous post regarding your libertarian like view on the "nonsense view" that is political bailouts of the 1%.
 
Wez said:
Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
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The Wages of Communism -- The Chinese Catastrophe Under Mao

Apparently new Communist Party archives are becoming available to scholars in China, and the true story of the Great Leap Forward appears to be even worse than we imagined.

A catastrophe of gargantuan proportions ensued. Extrapolating from published population statistics, historians have speculated that tens of millions of people died of starvation. But the true dimensions of what happened are only now coming to light thanks to the meticulous reports the party itself compiled during the famine. My study, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe (2010), relies on hundreds of hitherto unseen party archives, including: secret reports from the Public Security Bureau; detailed minutes of top party meetings; unexpunged versions of leadership speeches; surveys of working conditions in the countryside; investigations into cases of mass murder; confessions of leaders responsible for the deaths of millions of people; inquiries compiled by special teams sent in to discover the extent of the catastrophe in the last stages of the Great Leap Forward; general reports on peasant resistance during the collectivisation campaign; secret police opinion surveys; letters of complaint written by ordinary people; and much more.

What comes out of this massive and detailed dossier is a tale of horror in which Mao emerges as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, responsible for the deaths of at least 45 million people between 1958 and 1962. It is not merely the extent of the catastrophe that dwarfs earlier estimates, but also the manner in which many people died: between two and three million victims were tortured to death or summarily killed, often for the slightest infraction. When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, local boss Xiong Dechang forced his father to bury him alive. The father died of grief a few days later. The case of Wang Ziyou was reported to the central leadership: one of his ears was chopped off, his legs were tied with iron wire, a ten kilogram stone was dropped on his back and then he was branded with a sizzling tool – punishment for digging up a potato.

There is more like this in the article. When I read this, I can't help thinking about Hannah Arendt and her classic "Origins of Totalitarianism." During the 60's and 70's, this fabulous work was targeted for marginalization by the academic Left because many in academia were admirers of Stalin and the Soviet Union and deeply resented the parallels Arendt raised between European fascism and Soviet communism. Arendt's partial rehabilitation came after 1989, when Eastern European scholars and historians coming out from under communism looked around for a framework to describe their experiences under communism, and found Hannah Arendt to be most compelling. This new wave of scholarship on communist China likely will vindicate Arendt as well.

American university campuses, in their current orgy of admiration for socialism, will have to work extra hard to whitewash this, but I am sure they are up to the task.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_bl...munism-the-chinese-catastrophe-under-mao.html
 
The Media's Role in Generating Polarization

July 28, 2016, 10:45 am


A while back, I was asked to write a short essay answering the question of whether the National Parks should be privatized. Here is my full answer.

Let me show you the first paragraph and a half of my answer, because I want to use it to make a point:

Should National Park’s be privatized, in the sense that they are turned entirely over to private owners? No. Public lands are in public hands for a reason — the public wants the government, not, say, Ritz-Carlton, to decide the use and character and access to the land. No one wants a McDonald’s in front of Old Faithful, a common fear I hear time and again when privatization is mentioned.

However, once the agency determines the character of and facilities on the land, should their operation (as opposed to their ownership) be privatized? Sure. The NPS faces hundreds of millions of dollars in capital needs and deferred maintenance. It is crazy to use its limited budget to have Federal civil service employees cleaning bathrooms and manning the gatehouse, when private companies have proven they can do a quality job so much less expensively....

It goes on from there, but I think that is a fairly nuanced and balanced answer, particularly given that I am probably the most vocal advocate in the country for public-private partnerships in public recreation.

But that nuance is not really interesting to the media. They like point-counterpoint polarization. So a web site called Blue Ridge Outdoors reprints me answer, but they edit it:

YES

No one wants a McDonald’s in front of Old Faithful, a fear I hear time and again when privatization is mentioned. However, once the government determines how to manage a particular park, should its operation be privatized? Sure. The National Park Service faces hundreds of millions of dollars in capital needs and deferred maintenance. It is crazy to use that limited budget for federal employees to clean bathrooms and man the gatehouse, when private companies have proven they can do a quality job much less expensively.

So my answer, which is pretty much "no" gets edited to a "YES" and the entire first paragraph of nuance is deleted. And we wonder why the world seems polarized?

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/07/the-medias-role-in-generating-polarization.html


 
Wez said:
Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
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Bruddah IZ said:
The Wages of Communism -- The Chinese Catastrophe Under Mao
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Mao was a Libertarian?

I did not know that.
 
Wez said:
A mix of Socialist like policies is necessary to curb the abuses found in a pure Capitalism system. Totally free markets have never been good for society, they allow human greed to take over.
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The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.--Friedman
 
President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”… Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. “What your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward. “What you can do for your country” assumes that the government is the master, the citizen the servant.--Friedman
 
Fair’ is in the eye of the beholder; ‘free’ is the verdict of the market. The word ‘free’ is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with ‘freedom.’ The word ‘fair’ is not used in either of our founding documents.-- Same guy
 
Wez said:
Yes, the Libertarian free market types love to idealize themselves as having it all figured out, despite the world being devoid of any Country that practices their nonsense view of finance. All you have to do is ask them to point out a Country that is the shining symbol of their ideal economy, and their argument fades quickly.
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What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.-- Friedman
 
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