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Post by rabbitreborn on Aug 30, 2020 10:03:22 GMT
Personal savings rate changes over the last few years could be seen as part of the natural fluctuations of a decades long downward trend. More recently? Yes. In the last few months, the savings rate has skyrocketed. But that’s to be expected in the context of insane times, massive riots, and economic lockdown. But the fed funds rate has been at or near zero since 2008. Trillions more in spending and debt. The savings rate, in real terms, isn’t going up in the long term. As to injustice, when was the last time we saw any real journalism in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or the host of African nations the American empire is bombing? I’m seeing less coverage. I’m seeing neocons, more hated by the public than ever, actually increasing their hold on the government. People are turning on the protests, and that’s inevitable. I’d be surprised to see any actual significant libertarian or liberal adjustments to the criminal justice system. Too many video showing violent riots and fascist tactics, even if those aren’t an accurate representation. I’m seeing Rand Paul, hardly my favorite person but one who proposed legislation in Breonna Taylor’s name to end no-knock raids, get harassed and scolded by people demanding he recognize Breonna Taylor’s horrible death. I think this is all political. And just as the war machine continued on with Obama’s election, so will the police state with a hypothetical Biden election. It will just be covered less by a complicit media. No arguments about the impact crisis has on saving, or the impact ZIRP will have on people living off their savings. You're quite right. One change in my thinking over the last couple years is that I have come to downgrade saving (and capital expansion) in explanations of how economic growth happens. I now see a larger role for contextual things like the presence of a culture that values entrepreneurship and the commercial bourgeois world. I also agree that these protests are political and that Biden is unlikely to change the underlying problem with the police. I think the protesters get that. Its why you don't see this turning into a Biden campaign event. The solution is much bigger than politics. Its going to require a cultural evolution. And perhaps one step in that evolution will be to ensure that the cost, loss and misery associated with a police state become so significant and widespread that the current arrangement becomes untenable. We're not going to get change by appealing to common notions of justice, compassion, humanity or morality. Then time preferences are shifting higher? If I remember correctly, part of your shift in thought is seeing the state as more of a reflection of the people. Well, the state is doubling down on things that would indicate a higher time preference with their monetary policy and spending. We’re literally taking money from future generations for current consumption. Now I might agree with you on the state reflecting the people, but only at the start of a state. As time moves forward, I think the state becomes more so independent of the people. Except in small shifts where the will of the people is manifested by the state by necessity, where the state gives ground to give a crumb of appeasement, the more cemented a state is, the more it operates and legislates and executes with its own incentives in mind. I also believe that the cultural appreciation of entrepreneurship is dwindling in our society. So while we may or may not differ on how impactful that is to economic growth, I don’t see how that matters. I see businesses and entrepreneurs fleeing areas where there is the most civil unrest right now. I see businesses being destroyed. I see it on clips from the news, and I’ve seen it first hand. I don’t know how entrepreneurs can feel encouraged right now. At all. Finally, I see the current unrest, the way it has progressed, having the opposite effect of your noble intentions. Things were getting better, in a long trend, in terms of what these protests are demonstrating against. Now, with covid and political partisanship and economic calamity, this feels more like an opportunity to create further divide for the benefit of the sociopaths in political power. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2020 16:51:50 GMT
No arguments about the impact crisis has on saving, or the impact ZIRP will have on people living off their savings. You're quite right. One change in my thinking over the last couple years is that I have come to downgrade saving (and capital expansion) in explanations of how economic growth happens. I now see a larger role for contextual things like the presence of a culture that values entrepreneurship and the commercial bourgeois world. I also agree that these protests are political and that Biden is unlikely to change the underlying problem with the police. I think the protesters get that. Its why you don't see this turning into a Biden campaign event. The solution is much bigger than politics. Its going to require a cultural evolution. And perhaps one step in that evolution will be to ensure that the cost, loss and misery associated with a police state become so significant and widespread that the current arrangement becomes untenable. We're not going to get change by appealing to common notions of justice, compassion, humanity or morality. Then time preferences are shifting higher? If I remember correctly, part of your shift in thought is seeing the state as more of a reflection of the people. Well, the state is doubling down on things that would indicate a higher time preference with their monetary policy and spending. We’re literally taking money from future generations for current consumption. I'm not sure they are shifting higher. If we use personal saving rates as a proxy the opposite story seems to be playing out. There is a clear uptrend in personal saving rates, indicating a lowering of time preferences.   The state is increasing the supply of money and spending but the gap between total incomes today and where they would be if we never had a pandemic, is still quite large. That indicates that monetary policy is too tight relative to what it would need to be for monetary neutrality. If they fail in this endeavor, there is a good argument to be made that our consumption in the future will be diminished. This is one place where we disagree. I think the things we say about politics to each other, collectively, has a massive impact on what actually happens. There is no doubt lobbying, campaign donations and calls to congressmen matter, too. The big evolution I have made is in no longer seeing the state or government as some kind of exterior or alien entity leeching on society. To some extent, the government is another emergent order like language and market prices. All orders are some mix of emergence and planning, to various degrees. Libertarians are great about criticizing how things go sideways when the state plans too much. But I think in carrying out that work too often the libertarian view has been blind to how the state is an evolved order which has a series of customs, norms and traditions that may have a rationality that we don't fully understand. The anarchist idea that we should dismantle the state, this complex order based on a rationality we don't fully understand, is just the sort of presumptuous planning that libertarians are so quick to criticize when they find it in every other doctrine but their own. I don't know I see that but I also see more and more people are finding ways to work independently. Most use the internet. It is true that some people are leaving certain cities because of crime, or high taxes, or overcrowding, or what have you. And I think they're all coming to Texas, lol. It could go that way. But I think the same sentiment could and was shared during MLK's day. I think a lot has changed already since George Floyd's death. And I think it will continue to change. And I think these protests will help speed that process up. [/quote] |
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bama beau
Legend
Fish will piss anywhere. They just live in water.
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Post by bama beau on Aug 30, 2020 16:54:59 GMT
LMAO!!!! I OWN you, you dumb twat....you are merely too stupid to see it.  Imagine being dumb enough, in 2020, to think that calling somebody a “bigot” is “owning” them. Bwaaaa hahahahaha! What a stupid fucking asshole! Haha. George Wallace could not have said it any better, unless perhaps one was partial to his drawl. |
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thor
Legend
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Post by thor on Aug 30, 2020 17:23:03 GMT
I don't disagree with a lot of your points.
But consider that nothing in our original constitution and bill of rights says anything about most of what you just wrote.
It talks about personal freedom, about liberty, the pursuit of happiness, those guns people love so much, etc.
From that perspective, they were advocating liberal progress. ALL men are created equal. A goal we still aspire to.
Freon
What about the chicks? What about them?  |
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Post by rabbitreborn on Aug 30, 2020 17:58:09 GMT
Imagine being dumb enough, in 2020, to think that calling somebody a “bigot” is “owning” them. Bwaaaa hahahahaha! What a stupid fucking asshole! Haha. George Wallace could not have said it any better, unless perhaps one was partial to his drawl. Aw, shucks! I just got owned again!! Derp. |
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Post by rabbitreborn on Aug 31, 2020 15:57:19 GMT
Then time preferences are shifting higher? If I remember correctly, part of your shift in thought is seeing the state as more of a reflection of the people. Well, the state is doubling down on things that would indicate a higher time preference with their monetary policy and spending. We’re literally taking money from future generations for current consumption. I'm not sure they are shifting higher. If we use personal saving rates as a proxy the opposite story seems to be playing out. There is a clear uptrend in personal saving rates, indicating a lowering of time preferences. The state is increasing the supply of money and spending but the gap between total incomes today and where they would be if we never had a pandemic, is still quite large. That indicates that monetary policy is too tight relative to what it would need to be for monetary neutrality. 1b If they fail in this endeavor, there is a good argument to be made that our consumption in the future will be diminished. 2 This is one place where we disagree. I think the things we say about politics to each other, collectively, has a massive impact on what actually happens. There is no doubt lobbying, campaign donations and calls to congressmen matter, too. The big evolution I have made is in no longer seeing the state or government as some kind of exterior or alien entity leeching on society. To some extent, the government is another emergent order like language and market prices. All orders are some mix of emergence and planning, to various degrees. Libertarians are great about criticizing how things go sideways when the state plans too much. But I think in carrying out that work too often the libertarian view has been blind to how the state is an evolved order which has a series of customs, norms and traditions that may have a rationality that we don't fully understand. The anarchist idea that we should dismantle the state, this complex order based on a rationality we don't fully understand, is just the sort of presumptuous planning that libertarians are so quick to criticize when they find it in every other doctrine but their own. 3 I don't know I see that but I also see more and more people are finding ways to work independently. Most use the internet. It is true that some people are leaving certain cities because of crime, or high taxes, or overcrowding, or what have you. And I think they're all coming to Texas, lol. 4 It could go that way. But I think the same sentiment could and was shared during MLK's day. I think a lot has changed already since George Floyd's death. And I think it will continue to change. And I think these protests will help speed that process up. [/quote] 1. The "clear uptrend" is not so clear to me. I see it as part of a fluctuation within the longer term downward trend since the early 1970s, when savings rate was flirting regularly with 15%. There are trillions more being spent, and ZIRP has been in effect since 2007ish. Are you arguing in 1b above that our consumption in the future will not be diminished if the right monetary policy is implemented? Don't goods and services have to be produced at similar levels for consumption to occur at similar levels? Much of the global economy has been locked down for chunks of this year, and consumption will fall regardless of how the federal reserve inflates the currency. I'm trying to understand that point. 2. This seems like state apologia. It seems like a way to dismiss criticisms of state action as 'a reflection of the will of the people driven through the emergent state' where one's own biases wish, while demonizing state action in areas where disagreement exists. It just seems like a more complicated and roundabout way to get to Democrat vs Republican. Don't like what the state is doing? Well then obviously people should protest. Like what it's doing? Well, then that's the will of the people. But where is this reflection of the people with things like Syria or Libya? Protests of neoconservative foreign policy were massive, and the failures of the military adventures are known by basically all, and yet the state continues the wars and the interventions. The state is no longer a mirror. It is its own entity, and that's not to say it's alien. The incentives evolve as the state ages, and then the incentives become quite predictable. 3. Some people are able to capitalize on the artificial shutdown of massive portions of the economy by re-directing their labor towards the virtual space on the internet. But there are millions of bartenders, waiters, cooks, masseuses, movie theater employees, stadium employees, etc. etc. etc. who can't just make that transition. Over ten years? Sure. A lot more. But the sudden state-enforced shutdown of entire industries is leaving millions of people without income, and more importantly, without purpose. They all can't become internet entrepreneurs. And the vast majority will not, whether through capability or effort. It won't happen. So entrepreneurship is under heavy assault right now, and the numbers will show that. Bankruptcies for May are up 50% YoY, according to the Wall Street Journal. And you must know that new business start ups (of more than 1 person) have slowed to a crawl. (Why more than 1? Because that's a gauge of impact on employment...) 4. I don't know that the same motivations exist in today's movement as existed with the movement associated with MLK. I might be convinced otherwise. |
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