Wages in the US have been exploding for decades. Economists don't measure the gains from product improvement. This video shows a simple equation that will win the debate for Friedman. Just ask 2 simple questions. What is quality? What is convenience? One equation can explain it all. youtube.com/watch?v=2c4mvGekYZY
@H1TMANactual Just as well you're around to keep that Chomsky right on basic facts. Always running his mouth without preliminary research. Keep up the good work sir.
@Waterfall714 Economists often become victims to bastardization by followers. Surely Keyne's most of all but Hayek & Shumpeter, too. I can't say I've read or heard a single thought from Friedman which could be distilled to a baser level of inanity though.
@anarchistory It wasn't misspelled, its referring to Don Regan, Reagan's Secretary of Treasury and later Chief of Staff. He helped engineer changes in the tax code, reduce income tax rates and decrease taxes for corporations. He was also the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch from 1971-1980. In other words, the real power behind Reagan. Look up a Youtube video called "Speed It Up" by overturefilms.
Friedman met with Pinochet once for a grand total of 45 minutes. Pinochet's economists followed Friedman's advice..then later abandoned it. Obama met with Chavez...dictator of Venezuela... on several occasions. Obama has also met with a terrorist who bombed the Pentagon. Chavez and Obama are on the same page when it comes to economics.
@jscottupton Pinochet was advised for years by economists that were trained by and considered themselves disciples of milton friedman. These economists were hand selected by Friedman and were funded by the Ford Foundation to train Chile's economists in Santiago. Augusto Pinochet was a military dictator backed by the CIA who was responsible for thousands of murders. Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected president who was briefly ousted by a military coup backed by the United States in 2002.
Noam Chomsky is a great example of someone who, having achieved something in one field (linguistics), decided to voice uneducated, irrational opinions in other areas (economics and politics).
Milton Friedman is a prime example of someone whom,having a achieved something in one field(a degree in economics)decided to adapt his theories to the greatest systematic expression and celebration of irrationality in the entire 20th century:Fascism.
Only an idiot could come to such an observation after hearing and READING such a highly intelligent man.I guess now you'll go back to your favourite TV channel FOX "NEWS".Definitely your intellectual level.Hurry -up ,or you"ll miss Glen Beck!
"Railroads....beyond the competencies of private industry" Uh.....What world is Chomsky living in. He didn't get the same version of history I got, and I'm a fan of Chomsky. The private railroad industries had to be sidelined and (excuse the pun) RAILRAODED by government, in order to support their inefficient government monopolistic endeavor called Union Pacific. They regulated and taxed out of competitiveness the more efficient (and hence cheaper) private railroad companies.
What Chomsky said was that the railroads were private, but management of the railroad system was beyond the competence of private industry, so it was taken over by the military. Of course, the railroads are private only a limited sense. The land is acquired by the state, and there are state subsidies constantly. UP as far as I know was private, in the sense that any or them were private, from day 1. You should be able to find the facts easily on the internet.
@Endstation Yea and the facts show clearly that several railroad companies were private from day one. IF you think socialism is such a great idea then why not socialize everything and be a communist? The answer is obvious, socialized sectors are less effiecient and don't adapt as readily.
Whatever the government takes in taxes can be seen as "forced wealth distribution", as long as the money stays in the local circulation it ends up in the pocket again of the tax payer. If the all the profit stays in the hands of the corporate executives that money will not find its way back to the consumer but will disappear into oversea investment plans that further undermines domestic productivity.
@Hashishin13 The money that goes to the government eventually comes back in your pocket, the money that goes to China never comes back and needs to be replaced with fiat money to avoid deflation.
@August1977 That is actually entirely wrong. The money that goes to china is still US dollars, do you thik the chinese are just hoarding the dollars over there? Or that they don't have their own currency? The problem(if there is one) is that china buys US bonds with this money, which means they trade it back to the US gov in exchange for what is basically stock in the country. It doesn't disappear...
You make it seem like its this nice little loop, the government taxes me and then magically the money reappears later in my bank account, what a joke.
What actually happens is the government steals the money from me through "taxation" by telling me if I don't pay they will steal my stuff and/or throw me in jail,
Then the bureocrats ususally give that money to their friends and the rich who financed their election campaign, THEN if I work for the government or the rich
Well, that's how it works in the US, because your economic model creates a business run government. I'm from Sweden. Here paid taxes gives you health care, schools, free universities, student loans for all, cheap medicines, low crime rate etc.
@Endstation So why do you think that the government is required for those services? Do you not understand that at the base taxes are theft? If stealing money for good intentions is such a good idea why doesn't everyone rob each other all the time? The idea that the government is entitled to the work you or I do is insane, government is just a social organisation of individuals yet we give them more power then we would allow each other. Socialist governments have slaughtered millions.
I recommend you to study some economics. First of all socialized sectors can be more efficient than privatized. One example is health insurance. A government managed health insurance has lower administration costs than a private one (and don't believe the Heritage Foundation bullshit, Medicare has lower administration costs per service delivered than their private counterparts). This because a governmen system don't have to spend anything on screening or advertising.
@Endstation I have studied economics, and the kind that you studied must be the ones bought out by the government. Effeciency isn't everything, even though I disagree with you entirely. Choice is far more important, and almost entirely lacking from the public sector.
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
Another example is basic research. The market does not produce enough basic research. That's why computers, lasers, and the internet etc. were products of government funded research. It had nothing to do with competition. Between the 50s and the 90s the US government paid 50-70% of all research and developement, and then we don't even count government procurement etc
@Endstation This is an oversimplification of enormous proportions. These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data. Also despite the fact that the government may have been the priginator of these things, they did so at ridiculous cost and only actually created the basics. The reason these things grew to be useful is the free market. If the market hadn't got involved these things would still be prohibitively expensive.
Ok. Whether it's inmoral for the government to collect taxes is an ideological debate and not one about economics. I can't see how it could possibly be inmoral. The US economy would not even exist without the government.
''they did so at ridiculous cost''
That's false. Public basic research investment is often more cost efficient than private. Joseph Stilgitz, the Nobel prize winning economist, has written about this.
:) Very good arguments, indeed! I recommend you to read some books (you may start with State of innovation by Fred Block, Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang, Unjust deserts by Garl Alperovitz, Making globalization work by Stiglitz etc.) and economics instead of arguing like a 3 year old. You're just saying stuff without presenting any evidence to back it up.
@ Your entire ideology is based on theft. Also it's spelt "immoral".
"Whether it's inmoral for the government to collect taxes is an ideological debate and not one about economics."
Well I'll forgive you because english ust be your second language, economics is about ideas too. Also since your brand of economics is the big statist type that is centered on making the government look like something more helpful then the criminal gang that it is, talking about taxes is perfectly reasonable.
I didn't call you any names. I presented evidence to support my arguments, while you did not. Yes, english is my second language. Everyone knows that the US high tech and pharmaceutical sector is a product of government funded basic research, that public health care is more efficient than private, that all successfull economies on earth developed because of a mix between government and market etc. Please show me any evidence that I'm wrong. Haven't ever seen any.
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly false. The basic medical and technological research funded by the government has led to hundreds of breakthroughs which took decades to accomplish. They would'nt have come as fast or at all without the government.
So you can't draw any general conlusions. Sometimes the market is more efficient, sometimes the government is, and sometimes a combination of them both.
@Endstation Effieciency is a side issue. Government is criminal. If a mobster steals 50% of everyones money and then gives them a few useful things it doesn't exonherate him for being a theif. The public sector is immoral because it forces you to use it's services by preventing competition, it steals your money through taxes(which are involuntary).
What if I don't like 1/3rd of the platform of candidate A and I like 1/3rd of candidate B's platform? I'm forced to choose a shitty package.
@Endstation In a free makret I can pick and choose from anything that is available and I can specifically choose against things I don't like. Its much more free at the most effective level. Also what about FEMA and the army core of engineers that caused such a fuck up at New Orleans? If it was a private company they would be broke and possibly in jail, but since its a government agency it will actually get MORE money to try to make sure they don't fuck up next time.
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
And don't even get me started on accounting for externalities. Government at least has some restrictions on pollution, and with effort will have more. How can a privatized system hope to force buyers and sellers to include externalities in the price?
If your talking about pollution it's pretty simple, you go to a court, prove a causal link between how these "externalities" affect you, and if the court agrees that someone is violating your rights then you win the court case. The reason you think only government can do this is because the courts currently have a bias towards industry/jobs/profits and against individual rights such as personal property.(your lungs are your property too)
@Hashishin13 I'm talking about Carbon Dioxide pollution when I say nonlocal pollution. How do you propose millions if not billions of coastal dwellers sue thousands if not millions of multinational businesses for flooding only likely caused by pollution-caused climate change? What about farmers experiencing bad crops years due to drought caused maybe by climate change? What about those negatively affected who don't even know by what? Class actions are just not that efficient.
@darkmiles22 Well easy, climate change is a hoax and a lie designed by corrupt government to further the burden of taxes.
Go look at their own data, according to them we add less then 5% of the total c02 output of the planet yearly.
There were times (RECENTLY) when the whole planet was much warmer then it is now and there weren't any massive floods, ice caps melting or the sea rising.
This isn't set in stone AT ALL. In fact many of the scientists the UN claimed to be in agreement are suing.
@darkmiles22 Also farmers suing over drought? Nobody guaranteed that farmers would have perfect weather, that is the risk of farming, not just recently but throughout history.
If your going to call me a "climate denier" or some other label made up by powerful people to be the new word for "heretic" then go ahead, but its you that will look like an idiot, not me.
Go look up "the medieval warm period", or the fact that they had to change "global warming" to "climate change" because IT ISNT WARMING
@Hashishin13 Yes, free markets. Liberty pretty much equals freedom. He talked about government power without involving himself in politics. You can discuss that without getting political. He wasn't an advocate for any politician. He was an advisor to a president or two but he never campaigned for them, didn't publicly stump for them, etc. He wasn't political.
@niloclappu You need to learn some facts... like Chompsky is a socialist, and its socialistic political philosophy that started all the drug prohibitions.
Taxes are theft, this is the biggest problem socialists ignore.(not the only one)
The evolution of recent human history has been dominated by minority control over the majority, the rulers have come up with nessesary illusion for compliance and servitude of the many, Science and technology has created a world of plenty, but the market mechanism is about artificial scarcity to perpetuate poverty and exploitation in a modality of war,enviornmental destructions,animal cruelty and so on . The new paradigm is sharing the Earth for our collective needs and wellbeing
Eurotrash can't fathom Reagan. Milton Friedman predicted the Euro would not survive the first real currency crisis. And now Germany is poised to become again the most powerful nation in a newly fractured Europe. Well done, dipshit socialists.
@sandinista138 As far as what? The quantity theory of money, maybe. But if you think that free markets are "completely discredited," I'd ask you to compare them to the stunning successes of socialism and central planning - like the current world superpower the USSR!
@TavaresDelanis I don't have to...I can just compare the U.S post 1980's, when it started implementing Friedman Free Market theories, to the U.S 1930's-1980 when it never employed free market ideals...but instead protected itself through tariffs and regulation and a mixed economy...bottom line..Keynes owns Friedman..
@sandinista138 Have you no memory of the 1990's? Most of the 2000's? Are economy was doing fine, aside from a mild recession in the wake of the dot-com bust and the recent recession - and it is by no means clear that gov't intervention has done more good than harm in the latter case. Compare the 1970's to the 1980's, in terms of just about any measure, and tell me which looked better. Yes, 1980-82 sucked...but only because the FED took the painful steps necessary to break inflation's back...
@TavaresDelanis Right, the early 90's as the early 00's were good however were bubble markets...since the constant deregulation of our financial sector, Free trade agreements we have seen the systematic destruction of our middle class...compare that to the 30's-80's that market the most rapid growth of our middle class as a country,,,and this latest collapse further proves that Milton Friedman, the Austrian and Chicago Schoolers were wrong...
@sandinista138 I love how you use the phrase, "the destruction of the middle class," as if this were self-evident. HAS the middle-class even been destroyed at all? You provide absolutely no support for this assertion, other than your demagogic remark. And all deregulation is not the same: bank deregulation is fundamentally different from, say, industrial deregulation.
@TavaresDelanis I'm touched...but please don't take my word for it, just google Economist and professor David Bloom from Harvard and read up on what he has to say regarding the U.S middle class...better yet here's a direct quote..
"There has been a thinning of the middle class," says David Bloom, an associate professor of economics at Harvard. "As society becomes more polarized, it has more 'haves' and 'have-nots,' with fewer in between.".Peace.
@sandinista138 Well good for Dr. Bloom, but he doesn't specify whether this "more polarized" society is brought about by robber baronism or changes in the economy that actually benefit a large mass of people. For example, higher degrees of income stratification in recent years are highly attributable to our economy changing from a ManFact- to "information"-based economy. People with college degrees are generally (based on their field/major) much MUCH more productive...
@TavaresDelanis I would also say good for Dr.Bloom,,,after all he is an economist from Harvard and would suspect he has a more comprehensive understanding of our Economic system than you....sorry no offense...i'll stick with the Harvard Economist on this one...come talk to me when your credentials are a better than his..
@sandinista138 Just as you draw your understanding/justification from Dr. Bloom, I draw mine from Dr. Friedman, Dr. Sowell, Dr. Williams, Dr. Cochrane, etc. Yes, economists (especially macro ones) argue the merits and demerits of "believing in" the prevalence/existence of certain patterns/phenomena (e.g. "thinning of the middle class") partly based on sophisticated, quantitative analysis of various factors, conditions, etc. - its a "wonkish" debate at that level. But insofar as the laymen...
@TavaresDelanis I also draw from Manor Keynes the father of Modern Economics and Ha Joon Chang Professor of Economics at Cambridge who's economic policy's have proven time and time again to completely discredit Friedman and Austrian School Economists...in fact Keynes economics is exactly what they teach at 99% of all credible learning institutions (like Cambridge)...so if you still consider it "laymen"...then show me an institution that teaches friedman...oh that's right they don't exist..
@sandinista138 What do you mean by "teaches Friedman"? If you mean MONETARISM, then yes, they still teach the importance of monetary policy as part of macro, but they also teach that fiscal policy is less-than-ideal for correcting recessions and inflation because of policy lag. But if by "teach Friedman" you mean the notion that the free market is the best form of economic organization, I'll bet that YOU couldn't find an institution whose econ program would argue to the contrary.
@TavaresDelanis I disagree...i've taking Economics multiple times in college and in both cases the Professor (one being Phd and Author W.Mack) who are strict proponents of Keynes fiscal policy..."Free Market" policy or monetarism was discussed however never as the the most effective ways to manage the markets..in fact history has proven that low inflation is not an indicator of growth or market stability...furthermore Monetary policy was never employed by the U.S or the UK untill the 80's..
@sandinista138 ...discuss economic issues, they more or less selectively cite evidence to fit their preexisting idealogical inclinations. You find more merit in Dr. Bloom's analysis than I do; I find greater merit in Dr.'s Friedman's. The point is though, you cannot invoke Dr. Bloom and make it a Me-vs.-Bloom debate, since Dr. Bloom's views don't represent that of all economists (to put it another way, I'm not arguing that demand curves slope up, such that Dr. Bloom is a spokesman for all...
@sandinista138 ...economists). Since I cite Friedman while you cite Bloom, it's either a me-vs.-you debate or a Friedman-vs.-Bloom debate...unless you actually are Dr. Bloom, then I'm debating you. You are a layman citing evidence, but trying to pretend as if I, your opponent, am arguing not against you but against an expert in your field. To put it another way, I've never said "Sorry, since you're not a John Bates Clark- and Nobel Prize-winning economist, I'm going to disregard your remarks"
@TavaresDelanis I appreciate yours and friedmans opinion, I just completely disagree...and yes I cite Ha Joon Chang and Manor Keynes as authority figures on the subject of economics...why wouldn't I or anyone else??...they've been able to prove time and time again their theories to be true...it sound like you unfortunately suffer from a general distrust of "intellectuals" from College Professors and Scientists as do many Americans...that's fine...we'll just agree to disagree on this issue..
@sandinista138 My opinion of "intellectuals" has nothing to do with this discussion; I never argued that Dr. Bloom selectively studies certain economic phenomena in such a way to fit his preconceived ideology. I would have no way of knowing if he did or not. Rather, I'm arguing that the both of us "discriminate" as it were in the people and statistics we cite in our arguments, and that we both do a better job poking holes in the opposition than recognizing the flaws in the arguments of...
@TavaresDelanis in fact high inflation (up to 40%) has proven to coincide with economic growth and prosperity....I don't question that a derregulated market is the best thing for private enteprise however I completely disagree that it's the best thing for a society as proven time and time again by the history of developing economies...it's been nice debating you though.
@sandinista138 Well if you're using a Keynesian model, of course high inflation will coincide; AD keeps expanding while AS remains constant or fails to grow at an equivalent rate. And while they are proponents of fiscal policy as far as being theoretically correct - prop up falling AD (in the case of a recession) due to reductions in consumption and investment spending by ratcheting up gov't spending - most will still concede that policy lags make fiscal policy an inferior means...
@sandinista138 ...of "fixing" the problem compared to monetary policy because of lags. By the time Congress passes fiscal policy (ie "stimulus" or "bail-out" bills, though the former is a better example than the latter), and the money actually begins getting spent and circulated, the recession that motivated said fiscal policy may have passed - and the net result of the fiscal policy might be inflation (or vice versa if they vote for, say, tax increases during inflation).
@TavaresDelanis I don't agree...and I don't believe history is on your side...the US as well as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Japan and South Korea have all effectively used the Keynes model of fiscal policy to develop their countries at rapid rates raising the standard of living for the majority of their inhabitants..know I challenge you to look at the developing nations who have been imposed with strict monetary policy from the IMF such as Mexico and see how far its gotten them..
@sandinista138 I don't disagree with you that there have been horrible fiscal policy decisions made by the U.S, especially in regards to military spending , but as mentioned earlier there are plenty of examples to draw from around the world that have brilliantly used Keynesianism to develop incredible success stories...including the development of industries and companies such as Toyota, Nokia, and Hyundai to name a few..
@sandinista138 Now, why is it that military spending has been an example of a "horrible fiscal policy decision"? According to the Keynesian model, isn't all gov't spending equal, just as all investment and consumption spending are equal? You could argue that spending on education would help expand AS in the future - but wouldn't defense spending also cause future AS expansion because the companies with defense contracts would have more money to re-invest in the business?
@TavaresDelanis Or is it "horrible fiscal policy" because money is going to the big, bad military instead of such bleeding-heart causes as education and welfare?
@TavaresDelanis No, Keynes was a humanist,, he argued in favor of deficit spending to aid the economy and should be paid back, furthermore he emphasized using deficit spending for the "good" of society...Military spending is by far the most useless way we can deficit spend. Why? Because were wasting money on things like bullets and bombs that can only be used for destruction..meaning theres no long term benefit to military causes..other than colonizing the planet...
@sandinista138 Whether he was a humanist or not is irrelevant - couldn't we also argue that Milton Friedman was? And isn't military spending also "for the 'good' of society"? First, national defense is a higher national priority than HEW spending; all our welfare spending wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans if Hitler or Stalin had realized their imperialistic plans. And secondly, military spending CREATES JOBS: engineers, technicians, computer scientists, chemists, physicists, etc., etc
@TavaresDelanis "[T]hings like bullets and bombs" don't design and build themselves, y'know. Finally, I hate war as much as you do, but neglecting military spending will only make inevitable conflicts worse. If you refuse to acknowledge that their are tyrants in the world whose hunger for power overwhelm their people's desire for peace (or their people DON'T, in a specific instance, desire peace), you are ideologically blind to reality. Hitler didn't want peace, not matter how much...
@TavaresDelanis Neville Chamberlain did. The Soviet Union wanted expansion, not matter how much bleeding hearts thought that "if we stand down, they'll stand down, too" (that they blatantly broke arms treaties while simultaneously insisting on U.S./European compliance discredits such talk). Islamic terrorists will still want to kill us, whether we seek to defend against them or not. I wish this were not so; I would be the largest proponent of slashing defense spending if I thought it would...
@TavaresDelanis ...bring peace, instead of just "peace in our time" (hey, I'm no fan of federal spending, why would I want more of it? Do I have a commodity fetish for B-1's?). I wish there were people in this world who didn't want to power more than the well-being of their fellow man. But that doesn't delude me; ideological blindness is worse than mere stupidity
@Tavares Denis The Military budget is the biggest piece of welfare there is...and the majority of it is used to fight the Soviet Union threat in 1984...our society would be much better off reinvesting 1/2 of our Military budget on infrastructure, and education...even then our bloated Military budget would probably still be the largest in the world....God forbid we actually make College Education and Health Care free to all Citizens..think of the horrible effects that can occur...like..
@sandinista 138 creating more Engineers, Scientist, and Doctors, creating new industry, creating millions of new jobs from new industry, making U.S Companies more competitive, allowing people to live healthier lives...but your right...god forbid we end up like the Scandinavian countries...you know, the places with the highest index of happiness in the world???
@sandinista138 Happiness is totally subjective. They might be happier with more expansive government, for cultural reasons or whatever - but that doesn't mean that we could impose similar policies in the U.S. and everybody would feel happier. Do most Americans want bigger government, in every respect - a larger welfare state, more regulation, higher marginal tax rates? If so, let them amend the Constitution and vote for legislators who will push for "Scandinavia-nization"...
@TavaresDelanis ...But if the American people are NOT voting for "Scandinavia-nization", if politicians who advocate such policies are largely unsuccessful, doesn't that tell you that people by and large are happier WITHOUT a Swedish-style welfare state? Should such a model be imposed on them, "for their own good," even if they don't want it? Isn't that type of thinking much closer to the "shock doctrine"-type approach than saying, "let people choose for themselves"?
@sandinista138 Uhh maybe that is because all their depressed people are so horribly depressed that they commit suicide? They also have the highest suicide ratio...
Also the most ridiculous taxes too. You can work for 1/3rd of your paycheck if you really think the government can spend your money better then you can, but I know how my money should be spent so stop advocating that the government rob me. Taxes that aren't voluntary=theft.
Government schools have produced a whole lot of people that think government can do no wrong, even in the face of all the history of the world. What a surprise, you send your kids away when they are empty headed, to the biggest gang of the land, to be educated and they come back praising the Mafioso government, I wonder if its just a coincidence...
Taxes are theft, regulations are unnecessary as those who fuck up are naturally selected against by the market, so why pay regulators?
@Hashishin13 Corporate media have produced a whole lot of people that think corporations can do no wrong, even in the face of all the history of the world.
Indeed, why pay for the FDA to keep food clean? It's not like they uncovered a conspiracy to keep tons of tainted peanut butter on the shelves last year. Oh wait, yeah they did!
People have limited information. A system that relies on small time shoppers doing all the research and forgoing cheaper products to punish screw ups is fantasy.
@darkmiles22 I'm not going to go back and read exactly what I said, but I don't believe that individuals have to do all the work, they could form a/several LEGITIMATE consumers rights groups that would look out for them in the same way as the FDA, and when/if they fuck up like the our board did up here in Canada when they allowed Thalidimide to be used, they would IMMEDIATELY go out of business and be replaced by someone who is (hopefully) of more sound judgment.
@darkmiles22 Also the free market is 100% opposed to the idea of corporations, so learn what you are talking about. Corporations couldn't even EXIST without your precious government. The very thing that makes corporations so evil is this notion of "limited liability", which is dun da da dun, GRANTED BY GOVERNMENT. If CEOs and the board knew they would be thrown in jail, PENNILESS if they did something horrible, instead of out of a job but still rich, I think less horrible shit would result.
@darkmiles22 "Indeed, why pay for the FDA to keep food clean?"
My problem isn't that we pay for it, if you want to or if everyone wanted to then that is fine, my beef is why are we FORCED to pay for it, even when it screws up or we don't agree with it?
I'm not against any form of organization as long as innocent people only have to interact with it on a VOLUNTARY basis.
@Hashishin13 We need a democratically accountable government to regulate because a private consumer rights watchdog would quickly and easily be turned into a corporate puppet. We need police for security and courts to keep the police accountable and elections to keep the courts honest.
If a system can be rigged to benefit the powerful, it will be. Government is the theater of class war and elections are periodic battles. Reality is not a utopia, and any change worthwhile takes time and effort.
@darkmiles22 "because a private consumer rights watchdog would quickly and easily be turned into a corporate puppet."
I meant to say we need many private organizations competing against each other to provide the best information, because then the competition would eliminate that problem.
If you want to see how the lone public watchdog that you favor HAS ALREADY been corrupted due to lack of competition or any form of direct accountability to the individual then go watch "Food inc."
@Hashishin13 I know our institutions have been infiltrated, that's why I want to elect people who actually believe in government and will try to enforce the laws, unlike Reagan and Bush who literally said they weren't going to enforce the laws. And neither regulations nor courts are perfect, which is why we need both.
Why don't we work together to improve competition and government institutions, we need all the help we can get to keep the system honest.
@darkmiles22 The whole system is bought and paid for by a select few of power hungry "elites", they get the power through buying off politicians who give their companies unfair advantages through the regulatory system, they get the money through the banking system which is literally built to steal money from the citizens. You should watch "the oh Canada movie" as it shows how corrupt our political/monetary system is, as this system has been implemented globally.
@darkmiles22 Also stop ignoring my statements about secession, if your system is so moral and upright why shouldn't I be able to secede with land I bought/own rightfully? I agree that those who DID benefit from corporate welfare and other GOVERNMENTAL bullshit should be tried and have their property expropriated, but I didn't so why can't I secede? Your system literally as to force people into it at the point of a gun for it to have a chance in hell in succeeding, mine is ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY.
@TavaresDelanis I guess there's an argument to be made for staying in the business of killing people...shit just 2 centuries ago we were in the business of enslaving people and exterminating indigenous populations..it's a horrible argument but i'm glad you brought it up...
@sandinista138 How is it a horrible argument to say that a government has a duty to protect its citizens? Sure, some wars may be launched for the wrong reasons - but that is no argument to dismantle the entire military. If an individual police officer (or, hell, an entire department) is a corrupt, racist SOB, do you leap to the conclusion that we must abolish all forms of law enforcement? Or do you simply refuse to acknowledge that there are people in the world who want to do us harm?
@sandinista138 Uhhh, nobody would argue in favor of the enslavement of innocent people, let alone the free market capitalists who don't want anyone to be able to transgress anyone else's rights. That is actually much closer to being true for you statists who think the government should have control over your money(money=power and freedom).
As for the indigenous peoples, 99.999% of those killed were killed through either disease or governmental actions, so again you statists lose.
@Hashishin13 Uh, markets are for whatever benefits them, slavery or otherwise. Democratic states at least are partially run by the people, unlike corporations which are unaccountable tyrannies of capital, renting labor as if workers were a commodity, exploiting the powerless through wage slavery for their own profit.
Less government = less protection from markets (there are no free markets as they centralize power inherently)
And taxes levied through democratic processes are not theft. Idiot.
@darkmiles22 "exploiting the powerless through wage slavery"
You are pretty far gone if you think a VOLUNTARY JOB is slavery. The problem with slavery wasn't being paid in food and shelter, it was being FORCED to work or being BEATEN and the prospect of your family being torn up by one of them being SOLD.
Voluntary occupations are NOT SLAVERY.
"taxes levied through democratic processes are not theft. Idiot."
So when the police come and throw me in jail and take my shit, I wasn't just mugged?
@Hashishin13 The term is wage slavery, not just slavery. It means buying a worker temporarily instead of permanently. Was indentured servitude not slavery because it was "voluntary?" They did sign a contract after all.
The only solution is workplace democracy and ownership of profits. Such a system disperses capital instead of concentrating it, reducing wasteful class warfare, while also improving efficiency by increasing work incentives.
Labor should own capital, not the other way round.
@darkmiles22 "The only solution is workplace democracy and ownership of profits. Such a system disperses capital instead of concentrating it, reducing wasteful class warfare, while also improving efficiency by increasing work incentives."
Says you, the truth doesn't bear this out. Go look at the soviet union or any of the MANY socialist societies that were started in the west before our loving government decided to steal our money so we were too poor to try such endeavors.
@Hashishin13 Um, the Soviet Union, PRC, NPRK, et al were not democratic workplace socialist countries where the workers owned their own capital through democratic means. They were totalitarian dictatorships where the central bureaucracy and the military owned the capital. They were even further from the type of socialism I'm talking about than the U.S. is. At least in the U.S. our government is partially responsible to the people.
@darkmiles22 Even if I voted against the taxes? It would be fine if democracy was actually a representative form of government, but they don't let you leave their country. If I could secede with my land because the government didn't REPRESENT me(as democracy claims to do) then everything would be fine and dandy, but no your "democratic process" would wage war on me for trying to leave. Imagine a husband waging war on a wife for divorce, its the SAME PRINCIPLE.
@Hashishin13 Life ain't fair. You want to make it more fair, then use your vote and influence to encourage policies that reduce the power differential between the rich and poor and distribute profits fairer - to each according to her effort rather than her bargaining power and with a strong safety net to cover the gaps.
@darkmiles22 So you entirely ignored my comment about secession? Or are you telling me: "NO YOU CAN'T secede, because then the poor wouldn't be able to steal from you through the government."?
You are obviously trying to be moral by providing for the poor, but you are entirely ignoring the fact that you use IMMORAL practices to do so.
In short, if you care about the poor so much that you don't care about morality, then go kidnap rich peoples kids and extort their money that way.
@Hashishin13 I think on this point we disagree about whether the rich ever earned their money in the first place. It's not stealing if you're stealing it back from people who benefit from a rigged system. And btw, U.S. federal taxes are barely more progressive than the proportional distribution of income in a capitalist mug's game. The rich steal from the poor in this country, not the other way round.
@Hashishin13 The propaganda telling you that the poor are out to steal from the rich is strong in the U.S., but that's all it is. Propaganda and projection. That's one of the first rules of propaganda actually. Don't just deny, go on the offensive and claim the exact opposite is true.
@Hashishin13 The government "steals" from you and gives to the poor? Do you complain when you drive on roads and use infrastructure that the government built? No one wants to pay taxes, but how are we to have viable infrastructure built and maintained without taxation? What are some viable options to the current system, which I admit is flawed in many ways?
@cosmicviewer477 The first roads in the united states were private roads. We have toll highways, why wouldn't it work for everything else? Lots of these roads(particularly in commercial sections) might still be free to use as the shop owners might pay the maintenance and have free road use to attract customers. The private sector and the public sector are made of the same things; people and goods, the only difference is that government has the right to force you to do things at gunpoint.
@cosmicviewer477 I would suggest you go look up the Mises Institute here on youtube or at mises.org. I would highly recommend Walter Block on this subject.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to a solution. ;)
@darkmiles22 "unaccountable tyrannies" That is because of the "corporate veil", i.e. limited liability.
"exploiting the powerless"
They may think they are powerless but they have the power to find a better job or work for themselves, if they can't do that then maybe we have too many people and the poor should stop compounding the problem with more mouths to feed? If a poor person doesn't have the right to mug me in the street(which they DON'T) then why can they do it through government?
@Tavares Dennis Milton Friedman a humanist??? Sure if you don't count the F-14 Tomcats planes needed to instill his policies like they did in Chile in 1973...furthermore Friedman's policies are so unpopular with the masses, that only a "perceived threat real or fake can be used to pass his policies"..his solution to economic recessions, depressions??? Do nothing...that's right, let people starve to death and die from curable diseases...hardly a humanist approach..
@sandinista138 Yes, sir, Milton Friedman was a humanist. He funded voucher programs for students, and was an inveterate advocate of freedom - his works were widely circulated in the Iron Curtain underground. As for Chile, and your Naomi Klein quote: he acted as a consultant to help fix the country's currency woes, which squashed the then-rampant inflation and spurred economic growth. Of all the S. American countries, which has one of the strongest economies now? Venezuela? No, Chile.
@TavaresDelanis you see, the 'strong' economy of Chile is based on the profit of the Codelco corporation, one of the biggest copper producers in the world. If the demand for copper on the market declines, the whole country goes down the whole.
@TavaresDelanis Schools, roads, infrastructure projects are exactly what we should invest our deficit spending on...because they have a multiplier effect of attracting and creating business...as well as making business much more profitable do things like effective transportation, highly skilled workers, and better utilities..
@sandinista138 The multiplier effect works for military spending too. Boeing buys more computer chips, the manufacturer of computer chips buys more of the raw materials for computer chips, etc. Also - especially for schools - the influx of more and more federal money has had a deleterious effect on education. I agree that SOME "infrastructure" (not "Robert Byrd Bridge" or "Bridge to Nowhere") is totally the fed gov't's role, but there is a fine line between maintaining roads and spending DOT
@sandinista138 ...those with whom we agree. I never made any argument about "intellectuals" in any way consistent with your assumption. Did I say "Dr. Bloom only believes that because, like most Harvard professors, he's a bleeding heart pinko-liberal."? Even if that statement were true - that his professional opinions are informed by his "class," as sociologists might argue - I would have no way of knowing, and I'd rather argue based on merit than unverifiable sociological considerations.
@sandinista138 Mind you, I'm NOT disagreeing that Dr. Bloom has a greater degree of expertise in the field of economics than I do, but that does not invalidate disagreement with his opinion, considering their are other people WITH Dr. Blooms degree of expertise who disagree with him. Also, you didn't address any of the arguments I posed, but tried to dismiss them by claiming that since I'm not a Harvard econ professor my arguments are intrinsically "wholly without merit."
Also, most Marxist-Leninist states were, in my opinion, indistinguishable from fascism, if you look at them from the point of view that Nomenklatura control of the means of production isn't essentially different from control by a state-managed private capitalist oligarchy.
i.e. Italy and Germany in the 30's and 40's, Spain under Franco, or Latin America when the CIA was propping up fascist dictatorships all over it to combat leftism. There were/are also a lot of other states that were/are essentially fascist, but didn't call themselves so, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, or the fascism-lite that exists in, say, France and Japan.
i think its strange that there is so many attacks on chomsky by people who seem to love friedman so much, there is many things that these two would have agreed about. Friedman was fundamentally a libertarian himself, (he supported the legalization of drugs and prostitution) the debate would be much less interesting than your think it would be. It certainly wouldn't be a slugfest, not with two men of their intelligence and stature.
You mean; if fascism worked well, socialism would never have been born, i.e. capitalism(laissez-faire) = free trade, which is the opposite of the centrally planned authoritarian/totalitarian collectivist systems(fascism/socialism), i.e. proponents of fascism/socialism etc are fond of using violence/coercion to achieve their goals?
@genYprogressive Boy I'd like some of whatever the hell you've been smoking. And who the hell is the guy he sights - David Noble? He's not an economist; any economist at MIT - or even somebody who's taken Intro to Microecon as a college freshman - would no that NO COMPANY WOULD ENGAGE IN ANY PRACTICES THAT ARE DELIBERATELY UNPROFITABLE!
@TavaresDelanis yes no other company with a few exceptions have done things that is not profitable. That is why Chomsky is showing how Milton Freidmans free trade bullshit has destroyed our manufacturing base. Read some history, we had protective tarrifs for a reason, so that corporations would not damage us in the name of profits. No other country has developed without protectionism, Freedmand destroyed this, and now we see the effects of it.
@genYprogressive You have very little understanding of economics. The reason why free trade makes everybody richer - and why every respectable economist from Milton Friedman to Paul Krugman supports free trade - is because both countries gain from specialization according to comparative advantage. To put it another way: if China can make t-shirts cheaper than American textile manufacturers can, then American consumers gain because the t-shirts they buy are cheaper...
@genYprogressive ...Meanwhile, the Chinese benefit - obviously - by selling their product in the market. You seem to forget that all voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial, otherwise they wouldn't take place.
@genYprogressive And, about the "manufacturing base": whatever happened to our AGRICULTURAL base? When this nation was founded, 19 out of 20 people were farmers; the number is less than 1 in 20 today. We don't have a comparative advantage in farming anymore, such that we have an agriculturally-based economy. Similarly, we no longer have a comparative advantage in manufacturing - I'd argue because unions kept driving prices up for so many years on end - so are economy is no longer ManFact-based.
@genYprogressive So its irrefutable that businesses would hurt their bottom line so that they can engage in "class warfare" sounds pretty fucking retarded to me. What he is debating against is corporatism/fascism which isn't free market capitalism at all, so friedman shouldn't be tagged here.
What a non-argument. Chomsky is a philosopher, in part in linguistics. But he's just as well done research in politics, economics, sociology, etc. This man is as close as anyone will ever get to being a genuine homo universalis.
@liamleahy Friedman did more to destroy the Iron Curtain on the cultural end (his books were widely read and distributed in the underground) than any goddamn apologist-for-communism liberal ever would have done - including Noam Chomsky, an apologist for the Khmer Rouge regime. For his work for mankind, Friedman's secured a place in heaven - while Chomsky's got a nice warm spot in hell waiting for him...
As a "video response", I have posted a video that is intended to fill the gap between this part of the talk ("2-6") and the one mislabelled "3-6". I titled it: "Noam Chomsky - Regan and Friedman Economics 2½-6".
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Wages in the US have been exploding for decades. Economists don't measure the gains from product improvement. This video shows a simple equation that will win the debate for Friedman. Just ask 2 simple questions. What is quality? What is convenience? One equation can explain it all. youtube.com/watch?v=2c4mvGekYZY
IlirMr 3 weeks ago
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@H1TMANactual Just as well you're around to keep that Chomsky right on basic facts. Always running his mouth without preliminary research. Keep up the good work sir.
DavidByrne85 3 weeks ago
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DavidByrne85 3 weeks ago
I hate Milton Friedman because of his fanatical idiotic cult members we still can see on youtube
Waterfall714 1 month ago
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@Waterfall714 Economists often become victims to bastardization by followers. Surely Keyne's most of all but Hayek & Shumpeter, too. I can't say I've read or heard a single thought from Friedman which could be distilled to a baser level of inanity though.
DavidByrne85 3 weeks ago
This guy knows his p's and q's.
MichaelStepkoff 6 months ago
Reagan, President of the US a few years ago. You might check the spelling. :)
anarchistory 9 months ago
@anarchistory It wasn't misspelled, its referring to Don Regan, Reagan's Secretary of Treasury and later Chief of Staff. He helped engineer changes in the tax code, reduce income tax rates and decrease taxes for corporations. He was also the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch from 1971-1980. In other words, the real power behind Reagan. Look up a Youtube video called "Speed It Up" by overturefilms.
tph2010 4 months ago
Friedman met with Pinochet once for a grand total of 45 minutes. Pinochet's economists followed Friedman's advice..then later abandoned it. Obama met with Chavez...dictator of Venezuela... on several occasions. Obama has also met with a terrorist who bombed the Pentagon. Chavez and Obama are on the same page when it comes to economics.
jscottupton 10 months ago
@jscottupton Pinochet was advised for years by economists that were trained by and considered themselves disciples of milton friedman. These economists were hand selected by Friedman and were funded by the Ford Foundation to train Chile's economists in Santiago. Augusto Pinochet was a military dictator backed by the CIA who was responsible for thousands of murders. Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected president who was briefly ousted by a military coup backed by the United States in 2002.
mjmatthewjohnstone 7 months ago 2
Noam Chomsky is a great example of someone who, having achieved something in one field (linguistics), decided to voice uneducated, irrational opinions in other areas (economics and politics).
jscottupton 1 year ago
@jscottupton
Milton Friedman is a prime example of someone whom,having a achieved something in one field(a degree in economics)decided to adapt his theories to the greatest systematic expression and celebration of irrationality in the entire 20th century:Fascism.
thirdshift47 10 months ago
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@jscottupton
Only an idiot could come to such an observation after hearing and READING such a highly intelligent man.I guess now you'll go back to your favourite TV channel FOX "NEWS".Definitely your intellectual level.Hurry -up ,or you"ll miss Glen Beck!
watayapupuya 10 months ago 11
"Railroads....beyond the competencies of private industry" Uh.....What world is Chomsky living in. He didn't get the same version of history I got, and I'm a fan of Chomsky. The private railroad industries had to be sidelined and (excuse the pun) RAILRAODED by government, in order to support their inefficient government monopolistic endeavor called Union Pacific. They regulated and taxed out of competitiveness the more efficient (and hence cheaper) private railroad companies.
Digali 1 year ago
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@Digali
You are not talking about the same thing.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Digali
What Chomsky said was that the railroads were private, but management of the railroad system was beyond the competence of private industry, so it was taken over by the military. Of course, the railroads are private only a limited sense. The land is acquired by the state, and there are state subsidies constantly. UP as far as I know was private, in the sense that any or them were private, from day 1. You should be able to find the facts easily on the internet.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation Yea and the facts show clearly that several railroad companies were private from day one. IF you think socialism is such a great idea then why not socialize everything and be a communist? The answer is obvious, socialized sectors are less effiecient and don't adapt as readily.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
Whatever the government takes in taxes can be seen as "forced wealth distribution", as long as the money stays in the local circulation it ends up in the pocket again of the tax payer. If the all the profit stays in the hands of the corporate executives that money will not find its way back to the consumer but will disappear into oversea investment plans that further undermines domestic productivity.
August1977 1 year ago
@August1977 So stealing from all your neighbours is fine because you are keeping the money in "local circulation" then huh? Taxes are theft.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 The money that goes to the government eventually comes back in your pocket, the money that goes to China never comes back and needs to be replaced with fiat money to avoid deflation.
August1977 1 year ago
@August1977 That is actually entirely wrong. The money that goes to china is still US dollars, do you thik the chinese are just hoarding the dollars over there? Or that they don't have their own currency? The problem(if there is one) is that china buys US bonds with this money, which means they trade it back to the US gov in exchange for what is basically stock in the country. It doesn't disappear...
Hashishin13 1 year ago
part 2
You make it seem like its this nice little loop, the government taxes me and then magically the money reappears later in my bank account, what a joke.
What actually happens is the government steals the money from me through "taxation" by telling me if I don't pay they will steal my stuff and/or throw me in jail,
Then the bureocrats ususally give that money to their friends and the rich who financed their election campaign, THEN if I work for the government or the rich
I get my money back
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
Well, that's how it works in the US, because your economic model creates a business run government. I'm from Sweden. Here paid taxes gives you health care, schools, free universities, student loans for all, cheap medicines, low crime rate etc.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation So why do you think that the government is required for those services? Do you not understand that at the base taxes are theft? If stealing money for good intentions is such a good idea why doesn't everyone rob each other all the time? The idea that the government is entitled to the work you or I do is insane, government is just a social organisation of individuals yet we give them more power then we would allow each other. Socialist governments have slaughtered millions.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
I recommend you to study some economics. First of all socialized sectors can be more efficient than privatized. One example is health insurance. A government managed health insurance has lower administration costs than a private one (and don't believe the Heritage Foundation bullshit, Medicare has lower administration costs per service delivered than their private counterparts). This because a governmen system don't have to spend anything on screening or advertising.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation I have studied economics, and the kind that you studied must be the ones bought out by the government. Effeciency isn't everything, even though I disagree with you entirely. Choice is far more important, and almost entirely lacking from the public sector.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
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@Hashishin13
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
Endstation 1 year ago
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@Hashishin13
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
Another example is basic research. The market does not produce enough basic research. That's why computers, lasers, and the internet etc. were products of government funded research. It had nothing to do with competition. Between the 50s and the 90s the US government paid 50-70% of all research and developement, and then we don't even count government procurement etc
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation This is an oversimplification of enormous proportions. These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data. Also despite the fact that the government may have been the priginator of these things, they did so at ridiculous cost and only actually created the basics. The reason these things grew to be useful is the free market. If the market hadn't got involved these things would still be prohibitively expensive.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
Ok. Whether it's inmoral for the government to collect taxes is an ideological debate and not one about economics. I can't see how it could possibly be inmoral. The US economy would not even exist without the government.
''they did so at ridiculous cost''
That's false. Public basic research investment is often more cost efficient than private. Joseph Stilgitz, the Nobel prize winning economist, has written about this.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation Yea well the nobel prize isn't a name worth mentioning anymore.
"The US economy would not even exist without the government."
This is just a joke. Go watch some Mises Institute lectures, you've been taught lies.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
:) Very good arguments, indeed! I recommend you to read some books (you may start with State of innovation by Fred Block, Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang, Unjust deserts by Garl Alperovitz, Making globalization work by Stiglitz etc.) and economics instead of arguing like a 3 year old. You're just saying stuff without presenting any evidence to back it up.
Endstation 1 year ago
@ Your entire ideology is based on theft. Also it's spelt "immoral".
"Whether it's inmoral for the government to collect taxes is an ideological debate and not one about economics."
Well I'll forgive you because english ust be your second language, economics is about ideas too. Also since your brand of economics is the big statist type that is centered on making the government look like something more helpful then the criminal gang that it is, talking about taxes is perfectly reasonable.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Endstation Lastly, I told you where to find information so calling people names only shows how childish you are.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
I didn't call you any names. I presented evidence to support my arguments, while you did not. Yes, english is my second language. Everyone knows that the US high tech and pharmaceutical sector is a product of government funded basic research, that public health care is more efficient than private, that all successfull economies on earth developed because of a mix between government and market etc. Please show me any evidence that I'm wrong. Haven't ever seen any.
Endstation 1 year ago
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@Hashishin13
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly false. The basic medical and technological research funded by the government has led to hundreds of breakthroughs which took decades to accomplish. They would'nt have come as fast or at all without the government.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
So you can't draw any general conlusions. Sometimes the market is more efficient, sometimes the government is, and sometimes a combination of them both.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation Effieciency is a side issue. Government is criminal. If a mobster steals 50% of everyones money and then gives them a few useful things it doesn't exonherate him for being a theif. The public sector is immoral because it forces you to use it's services by preventing competition, it steals your money through taxes(which are involuntary).
What if I don't like 1/3rd of the platform of candidate A and I like 1/3rd of candidate B's platform? I'm forced to choose a shitty package.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Endstation In a free makret I can pick and choose from anything that is available and I can specifically choose against things I don't like. Its much more free at the most effective level. Also what about FEMA and the army core of engineers that caused such a fuck up at New Orleans? If it was a private company they would be broke and possibly in jail, but since its a government agency it will actually get MORE money to try to make sure they don't fuck up next time.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
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@Hashishin13
''These inventions were inevitable, they were the result of new data.''
That's certainly totally false. Please read some technological history. One new book is State of innovation by Fred Block. Without the government funded research a huge amount of scientific breakthroughs would never had happened or would have happened much later than they did.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 "Broke and possibly in jail" Oh! Like Goldman Sachs!
sgtcrab1 9 months ago
And don't even get me started on accounting for externalities. Government at least has some restrictions on pollution, and with effort will have more. How can a privatized system hope to force buyers and sellers to include externalities in the price?
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Externalities such as??
If your talking about pollution it's pretty simple, you go to a court, prove a causal link between how these "externalities" affect you, and if the court agrees that someone is violating your rights then you win the court case. The reason you think only government can do this is because the courts currently have a bias towards industry/jobs/profits and against individual rights such as personal property.(your lungs are your property too)
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 I'm talking about Carbon Dioxide pollution when I say nonlocal pollution. How do you propose millions if not billions of coastal dwellers sue thousands if not millions of multinational businesses for flooding only likely caused by pollution-caused climate change? What about farmers experiencing bad crops years due to drought caused maybe by climate change? What about those negatively affected who don't even know by what? Class actions are just not that efficient.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Well easy, climate change is a hoax and a lie designed by corrupt government to further the burden of taxes.
Go look at their own data, according to them we add less then 5% of the total c02 output of the planet yearly.
There were times (RECENTLY) when the whole planet was much warmer then it is now and there weren't any massive floods, ice caps melting or the sea rising.
This isn't set in stone AT ALL. In fact many of the scientists the UN claimed to be in agreement are suing.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Also farmers suing over drought? Nobody guaranteed that farmers would have perfect weather, that is the risk of farming, not just recently but throughout history.
If your going to call me a "climate denier" or some other label made up by powerful people to be the new word for "heretic" then go ahead, but its you that will look like an idiot, not me.
Go look up "the medieval warm period", or the fact that they had to change "global warming" to "climate change" because IT ISNT WARMING
Hashishin13 1 year ago
Good speech but i have to keep myself form falling alseep!!!
zdatdude48 1 year ago
@AaronCee No, because Noam Chomsky was political, while Milton Friedman was not.
ObamaWatch1212 1 year ago
@ObamaWatch1212 Uhh your wrong, friedman talked about liberty all the time. You can't be an economist and not talk about freedom.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 Yes, free markets. Liberty pretty much equals freedom. He talked about government power without involving himself in politics. You can discuss that without getting political. He wasn't an advocate for any politician. He was an advisor to a president or two but he never campaigned for them, didn't publicly stump for them, etc. He wasn't political.
ObamaWatch1212 1 year ago
@ObamaWatch1212 Politics isn't leaders and parties, its ideas, and he is clearly in favor of socialism, a political philosophy.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@AaronCee becaues Friedman would have got whooped!!
niloclappu 1 year ago
@niloclappu You need to learn some facts... like Chompsky is a socialist, and its socialistic political philosophy that started all the drug prohibitions.
Taxes are theft, this is the biggest problem socialists ignore.(not the only one)
Hashishin13 1 year ago
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The evolution of recent human history has been dominated by minority control over the majority, the rulers have come up with nessesary illusion for compliance and servitude of the many, Science and technology has created a world of plenty, but the market mechanism is about artificial scarcity to perpetuate poverty and exploitation in a modality of war,enviornmental destructions,animal cruelty and so on . The new paradigm is sharing the Earth for our collective needs and wellbeing
arzoyan 1 year ago
Chomski attacks without solutions and without the rudimentary understanding of anything.
High has the highest IQ of any idiot on Earth.
islandmuffin 1 year ago
stick to being a linguist chomsky
shockwaveization 1 year ago
Eurotrash can't fathom Reagan. Milton Friedman predicted the Euro would not survive the first real currency crisis. And now Germany is poised to become again the most powerful nation in a newly fractured Europe. Well done, dipshit socialists.
alphecca2539 1 year ago
This guy is quite UNamzing
mmamolina 1 year ago
@AaronCee I imagine Friedman would've PWND this guy. =D
mmamolina 1 year ago
@AaronCee because Milton Friedman is a joke and completely discredited.
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 As far as what? The quantity theory of money, maybe. But if you think that free markets are "completely discredited," I'd ask you to compare them to the stunning successes of socialism and central planning - like the current world superpower the USSR!
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I don't have to...I can just compare the U.S post 1980's, when it started implementing Friedman Free Market theories, to the U.S 1930's-1980 when it never employed free market ideals...but instead protected itself through tariffs and regulation and a mixed economy...bottom line..Keynes owns Friedman..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Have you no memory of the 1990's? Most of the 2000's? Are economy was doing fine, aside from a mild recession in the wake of the dot-com bust and the recent recession - and it is by no means clear that gov't intervention has done more good than harm in the latter case. Compare the 1970's to the 1980's, in terms of just about any measure, and tell me which looked better. Yes, 1980-82 sucked...but only because the FED took the painful steps necessary to break inflation's back...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis Right, the early 90's as the early 00's were good however were bubble markets...since the constant deregulation of our financial sector, Free trade agreements we have seen the systematic destruction of our middle class...compare that to the 30's-80's that market the most rapid growth of our middle class as a country,,,and this latest collapse further proves that Milton Friedman, the Austrian and Chicago Schoolers were wrong...
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 I love how you use the phrase, "the destruction of the middle class," as if this were self-evident. HAS the middle-class even been destroyed at all? You provide absolutely no support for this assertion, other than your demagogic remark. And all deregulation is not the same: bank deregulation is fundamentally different from, say, industrial deregulation.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I'm touched...but please don't take my word for it, just google Economist and professor David Bloom from Harvard and read up on what he has to say regarding the U.S middle class...better yet here's a direct quote..
"There has been a thinning of the middle class," says David Bloom, an associate professor of economics at Harvard. "As society becomes more polarized, it has more 'haves' and 'have-nots,' with fewer in between.".Peace.
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Well good for Dr. Bloom, but he doesn't specify whether this "more polarized" society is brought about by robber baronism or changes in the economy that actually benefit a large mass of people. For example, higher degrees of income stratification in recent years are highly attributable to our economy changing from a ManFact- to "information"-based economy. People with college degrees are generally (based on their field/major) much MUCH more productive...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I would also say good for Dr.Bloom,,,after all he is an economist from Harvard and would suspect he has a more comprehensive understanding of our Economic system than you....sorry no offense...i'll stick with the Harvard Economist on this one...come talk to me when your credentials are a better than his..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Just as you draw your understanding/justification from Dr. Bloom, I draw mine from Dr. Friedman, Dr. Sowell, Dr. Williams, Dr. Cochrane, etc. Yes, economists (especially macro ones) argue the merits and demerits of "believing in" the prevalence/existence of certain patterns/phenomena (e.g. "thinning of the middle class") partly based on sophisticated, quantitative analysis of various factors, conditions, etc. - its a "wonkish" debate at that level. But insofar as the laymen...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I also draw from Manor Keynes the father of Modern Economics and Ha Joon Chang Professor of Economics at Cambridge who's economic policy's have proven time and time again to completely discredit Friedman and Austrian School Economists...in fact Keynes economics is exactly what they teach at 99% of all credible learning institutions (like Cambridge)...so if you still consider it "laymen"...then show me an institution that teaches friedman...oh that's right they don't exist..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 What do you mean by "teaches Friedman"? If you mean MONETARISM, then yes, they still teach the importance of monetary policy as part of macro, but they also teach that fiscal policy is less-than-ideal for correcting recessions and inflation because of policy lag. But if by "teach Friedman" you mean the notion that the free market is the best form of economic organization, I'll bet that YOU couldn't find an institution whose econ program would argue to the contrary.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I disagree...i've taking Economics multiple times in college and in both cases the Professor (one being Phd and Author W.Mack) who are strict proponents of Keynes fiscal policy..."Free Market" policy or monetarism was discussed however never as the the most effective ways to manage the markets..in fact history has proven that low inflation is not an indicator of growth or market stability...furthermore Monetary policy was never employed by the U.S or the UK untill the 80's..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 ...discuss economic issues, they more or less selectively cite evidence to fit their preexisting idealogical inclinations. You find more merit in Dr. Bloom's analysis than I do; I find greater merit in Dr.'s Friedman's. The point is though, you cannot invoke Dr. Bloom and make it a Me-vs.-Bloom debate, since Dr. Bloom's views don't represent that of all economists (to put it another way, I'm not arguing that demand curves slope up, such that Dr. Bloom is a spokesman for all...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@sandinista138 ...economists). Since I cite Friedman while you cite Bloom, it's either a me-vs.-you debate or a Friedman-vs.-Bloom debate...unless you actually are Dr. Bloom, then I'm debating you. You are a layman citing evidence, but trying to pretend as if I, your opponent, am arguing not against you but against an expert in your field. To put it another way, I've never said "Sorry, since you're not a John Bates Clark- and Nobel Prize-winning economist, I'm going to disregard your remarks"
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I appreciate yours and friedmans opinion, I just completely disagree...and yes I cite Ha Joon Chang and Manor Keynes as authority figures on the subject of economics...why wouldn't I or anyone else??...they've been able to prove time and time again their theories to be true...it sound like you unfortunately suffer from a general distrust of "intellectuals" from College Professors and Scientists as do many Americans...that's fine...we'll just agree to disagree on this issue..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 My opinion of "intellectuals" has nothing to do with this discussion; I never argued that Dr. Bloom selectively studies certain economic phenomena in such a way to fit his preconceived ideology. I would have no way of knowing if he did or not. Rather, I'm arguing that the both of us "discriminate" as it were in the people and statistics we cite in our arguments, and that we both do a better job poking holes in the opposition than recognizing the flaws in the arguments of...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis in fact high inflation (up to 40%) has proven to coincide with economic growth and prosperity....I don't question that a derregulated market is the best thing for private enteprise however I completely disagree that it's the best thing for a society as proven time and time again by the history of developing economies...it's been nice debating you though.
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Well if you're using a Keynesian model, of course high inflation will coincide; AD keeps expanding while AS remains constant or fails to grow at an equivalent rate. And while they are proponents of fiscal policy as far as being theoretically correct - prop up falling AD (in the case of a recession) due to reductions in consumption and investment spending by ratcheting up gov't spending - most will still concede that policy lags make fiscal policy an inferior means...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@sandinista138 ...of "fixing" the problem compared to monetary policy because of lags. By the time Congress passes fiscal policy (ie "stimulus" or "bail-out" bills, though the former is a better example than the latter), and the money actually begins getting spent and circulated, the recession that motivated said fiscal policy may have passed - and the net result of the fiscal policy might be inflation (or vice versa if they vote for, say, tax increases during inflation).
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I don't agree...and I don't believe history is on your side...the US as well as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Japan and South Korea have all effectively used the Keynes model of fiscal policy to develop their countries at rapid rates raising the standard of living for the majority of their inhabitants..know I challenge you to look at the developing nations who have been imposed with strict monetary policy from the IMF such as Mexico and see how far its gotten them..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 I don't disagree with you that there have been horrible fiscal policy decisions made by the U.S, especially in regards to military spending , but as mentioned earlier there are plenty of examples to draw from around the world that have brilliantly used Keynesianism to develop incredible success stories...including the development of industries and companies such as Toyota, Nokia, and Hyundai to name a few..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Now, why is it that military spending has been an example of a "horrible fiscal policy decision"? According to the Keynesian model, isn't all gov't spending equal, just as all investment and consumption spending are equal? You could argue that spending on education would help expand AS in the future - but wouldn't defense spending also cause future AS expansion because the companies with defense contracts would have more money to re-invest in the business?
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis Or is it "horrible fiscal policy" because money is going to the big, bad military instead of such bleeding-heart causes as education and welfare?
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis No, Keynes was a humanist,, he argued in favor of deficit spending to aid the economy and should be paid back, furthermore he emphasized using deficit spending for the "good" of society...Military spending is by far the most useless way we can deficit spend. Why? Because were wasting money on things like bullets and bombs that can only be used for destruction..meaning theres no long term benefit to military causes..other than colonizing the planet...
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Whether he was a humanist or not is irrelevant - couldn't we also argue that Milton Friedman was? And isn't military spending also "for the 'good' of society"? First, national defense is a higher national priority than HEW spending; all our welfare spending wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans if Hitler or Stalin had realized their imperialistic plans. And secondly, military spending CREATES JOBS: engineers, technicians, computer scientists, chemists, physicists, etc., etc
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis "[T]hings like bullets and bombs" don't design and build themselves, y'know. Finally, I hate war as much as you do, but neglecting military spending will only make inevitable conflicts worse. If you refuse to acknowledge that their are tyrants in the world whose hunger for power overwhelm their people's desire for peace (or their people DON'T, in a specific instance, desire peace), you are ideologically blind to reality. Hitler didn't want peace, not matter how much...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis Neville Chamberlain did. The Soviet Union wanted expansion, not matter how much bleeding hearts thought that "if we stand down, they'll stand down, too" (that they blatantly broke arms treaties while simultaneously insisting on U.S./European compliance discredits such talk). Islamic terrorists will still want to kill us, whether we seek to defend against them or not. I wish this were not so; I would be the largest proponent of slashing defense spending if I thought it would...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis ...bring peace, instead of just "peace in our time" (hey, I'm no fan of federal spending, why would I want more of it? Do I have a commodity fetish for B-1's?). I wish there were people in this world who didn't want to power more than the well-being of their fellow man. But that doesn't delude me; ideological blindness is worse than mere stupidity
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@Tavares Denis The Military budget is the biggest piece of welfare there is...and the majority of it is used to fight the Soviet Union threat in 1984...our society would be much better off reinvesting 1/2 of our Military budget on infrastructure, and education...even then our bloated Military budget would probably still be the largest in the world....God forbid we actually make College Education and Health Care free to all Citizens..think of the horrible effects that can occur...like..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista 138 creating more Engineers, Scientist, and Doctors, creating new industry, creating millions of new jobs from new industry, making U.S Companies more competitive, allowing people to live healthier lives...but your right...god forbid we end up like the Scandinavian countries...you know, the places with the highest index of happiness in the world???
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Happiness is totally subjective. They might be happier with more expansive government, for cultural reasons or whatever - but that doesn't mean that we could impose similar policies in the U.S. and everybody would feel happier. Do most Americans want bigger government, in every respect - a larger welfare state, more regulation, higher marginal tax rates? If so, let them amend the Constitution and vote for legislators who will push for "Scandinavia-nization"...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis ...But if the American people are NOT voting for "Scandinavia-nization", if politicians who advocate such policies are largely unsuccessful, doesn't that tell you that people by and large are happier WITHOUT a Swedish-style welfare state? Should such a model be imposed on them, "for their own good," even if they don't want it? Isn't that type of thinking much closer to the "shock doctrine"-type approach than saying, "let people choose for themselves"?
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Uhh maybe that is because all their depressed people are so horribly depressed that they commit suicide? They also have the highest suicide ratio...
Also the most ridiculous taxes too. You can work for 1/3rd of your paycheck if you really think the government can spend your money better then you can, but I know how my money should be spent so stop advocating that the government rob me. Taxes that aren't voluntary=theft.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
Government schools have produced a whole lot of people that think government can do no wrong, even in the face of all the history of the world. What a surprise, you send your kids away when they are empty headed, to the biggest gang of the land, to be educated and they come back praising the Mafioso government, I wonder if its just a coincidence...
Taxes are theft, regulations are unnecessary as those who fuck up are naturally selected against by the market, so why pay regulators?
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 Corporate media have produced a whole lot of people that think corporations can do no wrong, even in the face of all the history of the world.
Indeed, why pay for the FDA to keep food clean? It's not like they uncovered a conspiracy to keep tons of tainted peanut butter on the shelves last year. Oh wait, yeah they did!
People have limited information. A system that relies on small time shoppers doing all the research and forgoing cheaper products to punish screw ups is fantasy.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 I'm not going to go back and read exactly what I said, but I don't believe that individuals have to do all the work, they could form a/several LEGITIMATE consumers rights groups that would look out for them in the same way as the FDA, and when/if they fuck up like the our board did up here in Canada when they allowed Thalidimide to be used, they would IMMEDIATELY go out of business and be replaced by someone who is (hopefully) of more sound judgment.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Also the free market is 100% opposed to the idea of corporations, so learn what you are talking about. Corporations couldn't even EXIST without your precious government. The very thing that makes corporations so evil is this notion of "limited liability", which is dun da da dun, GRANTED BY GOVERNMENT. If CEOs and the board knew they would be thrown in jail, PENNILESS if they did something horrible, instead of out of a job but still rich, I think less horrible shit would result.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 "Indeed, why pay for the FDA to keep food clean?"
My problem isn't that we pay for it, if you want to or if everyone wanted to then that is fine, my beef is why are we FORCED to pay for it, even when it screws up or we don't agree with it?
I'm not against any form of organization as long as innocent people only have to interact with it on a VOLUNTARY basis.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 We need a democratically accountable government to regulate because a private consumer rights watchdog would quickly and easily be turned into a corporate puppet. We need police for security and courts to keep the police accountable and elections to keep the courts honest.
If a system can be rigged to benefit the powerful, it will be. Government is the theater of class war and elections are periodic battles. Reality is not a utopia, and any change worthwhile takes time and effort.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 "because a private consumer rights watchdog would quickly and easily be turned into a corporate puppet."
I meant to say we need many private organizations competing against each other to provide the best information, because then the competition would eliminate that problem.
If you want to see how the lone public watchdog that you favor HAS ALREADY been corrupted due to lack of competition or any form of direct accountability to the individual then go watch "Food inc."
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 I know our institutions have been infiltrated, that's why I want to elect people who actually believe in government and will try to enforce the laws, unlike Reagan and Bush who literally said they weren't going to enforce the laws. And neither regulations nor courts are perfect, which is why we need both.
Why don't we work together to improve competition and government institutions, we need all the help we can get to keep the system honest.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 The whole system is bought and paid for by a select few of power hungry "elites", they get the power through buying off politicians who give their companies unfair advantages through the regulatory system, they get the money through the banking system which is literally built to steal money from the citizens. You should watch "the oh Canada movie" as it shows how corrupt our political/monetary system is, as this system has been implemented globally.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Also stop ignoring my statements about secession, if your system is so moral and upright why shouldn't I be able to secede with land I bought/own rightfully? I agree that those who DID benefit from corporate welfare and other GOVERNMENTAL bullshit should be tried and have their property expropriated, but I didn't so why can't I secede? Your system literally as to force people into it at the point of a gun for it to have a chance in hell in succeeding, mine is ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis I guess there's an argument to be made for staying in the business of killing people...shit just 2 centuries ago we were in the business of enslaving people and exterminating indigenous populations..it's a horrible argument but i'm glad you brought it up...
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 How is it a horrible argument to say that a government has a duty to protect its citizens? Sure, some wars may be launched for the wrong reasons - but that is no argument to dismantle the entire military. If an individual police officer (or, hell, an entire department) is a corrupt, racist SOB, do you leap to the conclusion that we must abolish all forms of law enforcement? Or do you simply refuse to acknowledge that there are people in the world who want to do us harm?
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Uhhh, nobody would argue in favor of the enslavement of innocent people, let alone the free market capitalists who don't want anyone to be able to transgress anyone else's rights. That is actually much closer to being true for you statists who think the government should have control over your money(money=power and freedom).
As for the indigenous peoples, 99.999% of those killed were killed through either disease or governmental actions, so again you statists lose.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 Uh, markets are for whatever benefits them, slavery or otherwise. Democratic states at least are partially run by the people, unlike corporations which are unaccountable tyrannies of capital, renting labor as if workers were a commodity, exploiting the powerless through wage slavery for their own profit.
Less government = less protection from markets (there are no free markets as they centralize power inherently)
And taxes levied through democratic processes are not theft. Idiot.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 "exploiting the powerless through wage slavery"
You are pretty far gone if you think a VOLUNTARY JOB is slavery. The problem with slavery wasn't being paid in food and shelter, it was being FORCED to work or being BEATEN and the prospect of your family being torn up by one of them being SOLD.
Voluntary occupations are NOT SLAVERY.
"taxes levied through democratic processes are not theft. Idiot."
So when the police come and throw me in jail and take my shit, I wasn't just mugged?
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 The term is wage slavery, not just slavery. It means buying a worker temporarily instead of permanently. Was indentured servitude not slavery because it was "voluntary?" They did sign a contract after all.
The only solution is workplace democracy and ownership of profits. Such a system disperses capital instead of concentrating it, reducing wasteful class warfare, while also improving efficiency by increasing work incentives.
Labor should own capital, not the other way round.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 "The only solution is workplace democracy and ownership of profits. Such a system disperses capital instead of concentrating it, reducing wasteful class warfare, while also improving efficiency by increasing work incentives."
Says you, the truth doesn't bear this out. Go look at the soviet union or any of the MANY socialist societies that were started in the west before our loving government decided to steal our money so we were too poor to try such endeavors.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 Um, the Soviet Union, PRC, NPRK, et al were not democratic workplace socialist countries where the workers owned their own capital through democratic means. They were totalitarian dictatorships where the central bureaucracy and the military owned the capital. They were even further from the type of socialism I'm talking about than the U.S. is. At least in the U.S. our government is partially responsible to the people.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 Even if I voted against the taxes? It would be fine if democracy was actually a representative form of government, but they don't let you leave their country. If I could secede with my land because the government didn't REPRESENT me(as democracy claims to do) then everything would be fine and dandy, but no your "democratic process" would wage war on me for trying to leave. Imagine a husband waging war on a wife for divorce, its the SAME PRINCIPLE.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 Life ain't fair. You want to make it more fair, then use your vote and influence to encourage policies that reduce the power differential between the rich and poor and distribute profits fairer - to each according to her effort rather than her bargaining power and with a strong safety net to cover the gaps.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 So you entirely ignored my comment about secession? Or are you telling me: "NO YOU CAN'T secede, because then the poor wouldn't be able to steal from you through the government."?
You are obviously trying to be moral by providing for the poor, but you are entirely ignoring the fact that you use IMMORAL practices to do so.
In short, if you care about the poor so much that you don't care about morality, then go kidnap rich peoples kids and extort their money that way.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 I think on this point we disagree about whether the rich ever earned their money in the first place. It's not stealing if you're stealing it back from people who benefit from a rigged system. And btw, U.S. federal taxes are barely more progressive than the proportional distribution of income in a capitalist mug's game. The rich steal from the poor in this country, not the other way round.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 The propaganda telling you that the poor are out to steal from the rich is strong in the U.S., but that's all it is. Propaganda and projection. That's one of the first rules of propaganda actually. Don't just deny, go on the offensive and claim the exact opposite is true.
darkmiles22 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 This entire comment about my information being propaganda fits perfectly into YOUR DEFINITION OR PROPAGANDA.
"Don't just deny, go on the offensive and claim the exact opposite is true." \/
"The propaganda telling you that the poor are out to steal from the rich is strong in the U.S., but that's all it is."
The government steals from me and gives to the poor who voted for the theft. Are you denying that is how it works?
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13 The government "steals" from you and gives to the poor? Do you complain when you drive on roads and use infrastructure that the government built? No one wants to pay taxes, but how are we to have viable infrastructure built and maintained without taxation? What are some viable options to the current system, which I admit is flawed in many ways?
cosmicviewer477 1 year ago
@cosmicviewer477 The first roads in the united states were private roads. We have toll highways, why wouldn't it work for everything else? Lots of these roads(particularly in commercial sections) might still be free to use as the shop owners might pay the maintenance and have free road use to attract customers. The private sector and the public sector are made of the same things; people and goods, the only difference is that government has the right to force you to do things at gunpoint.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@cosmicviewer477 I would suggest you go look up the Mises Institute here on youtube or at mises.org. I would highly recommend Walter Block on this subject.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to a solution. ;)
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Hashishin13
I recommend you to read State of innovation by Fred Block and Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang.
Endstation 1 year ago
@Endstation I recommend you go to Mises dot org or watch Mises instute lectures here on youtube.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@darkmiles22 "unaccountable tyrannies" That is because of the "corporate veil", i.e. limited liability.
"exploiting the powerless"
They may think they are powerless but they have the power to find a better job or work for themselves, if they can't do that then maybe we have too many people and the poor should stop compounding the problem with more mouths to feed? If a poor person doesn't have the right to mug me in the street(which they DON'T) then why can they do it through government?
Hashishin13 1 year ago
@Tavares Dennis Milton Friedman a humanist??? Sure if you don't count the F-14 Tomcats planes needed to instill his policies like they did in Chile in 1973...furthermore Friedman's policies are so unpopular with the masses, that only a "perceived threat real or fake can be used to pass his policies"..his solution to economic recessions, depressions??? Do nothing...that's right, let people starve to death and die from curable diseases...hardly a humanist approach..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Yes, sir, Milton Friedman was a humanist. He funded voucher programs for students, and was an inveterate advocate of freedom - his works were widely circulated in the Iron Curtain underground. As for Chile, and your Naomi Klein quote: he acted as a consultant to help fix the country's currency woes, which squashed the then-rampant inflation and spurred economic growth. Of all the S. American countries, which has one of the strongest economies now? Venezuela? No, Chile.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis you see, the 'strong' economy of Chile is based on the profit of the Codelco corporation, one of the biggest copper producers in the world. If the demand for copper on the market declines, the whole country goes down the whole.
xbornstubbornx 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis Schools, roads, infrastructure projects are exactly what we should invest our deficit spending on...because they have a multiplier effect of attracting and creating business...as well as making business much more profitable do things like effective transportation, highly skilled workers, and better utilities..
sandinista138 1 year ago
@sandinista138 The multiplier effect works for military spending too. Boeing buys more computer chips, the manufacturer of computer chips buys more of the raw materials for computer chips, etc. Also - especially for schools - the influx of more and more federal money has had a deleterious effect on education. I agree that SOME "infrastructure" (not "Robert Byrd Bridge" or "Bridge to Nowhere") is totally the fed gov't's role, but there is a fine line between maintaining roads and spending DOT
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis ...money for spending's sake.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
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TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
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@sandinista138 ...those with whom we agree. I never made any argument about "intellectuals" in any way consistent with your assumption. Did I say "Dr. Bloom only believes that because, like most Harvard professors, he's a bleeding heart pinko-liberal."? Even if that statement were true - that his professional opinions are informed by his "class," as sociologists might argue - I would have no way of knowing, and I'd rather argue based on merit than unverifiable sociological considerations.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@sandinista138 Mind you, I'm NOT disagreeing that Dr. Bloom has a greater degree of expertise in the field of economics than I do, but that does not invalidate disagreement with his opinion, considering their are other people WITH Dr. Blooms degree of expertise who disagree with him. Also, you didn't address any of the arguments I posed, but tried to dismiss them by claiming that since I'm not a Harvard econ professor my arguments are intrinsically "wholly without merit."
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
Also, most Marxist-Leninist states were, in my opinion, indistinguishable from fascism, if you look at them from the point of view that Nomenklatura control of the means of production isn't essentially different from control by a state-managed private capitalist oligarchy.
Dalambam 2 years ago
i.e. Italy and Germany in the 30's and 40's, Spain under Franco, or Latin America when the CIA was propping up fascist dictatorships all over it to combat leftism. There were/are also a lot of other states that were/are essentially fascist, but didn't call themselves so, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, or the fascism-lite that exists in, say, France and Japan.
Dalambam 2 years ago
i think its strange that there is so many attacks on chomsky by people who seem to love friedman so much, there is many things that these two would have agreed about. Friedman was fundamentally a libertarian himself, (he supported the legalization of drugs and prostitution) the debate would be much less interesting than your think it would be. It certainly wouldn't be a slugfest, not with two men of their intelligence and stature.
evacuationplanb 2 years ago
Milton Friedman would have cleaned this guy's clock, had they debated.
andharvey8 2 years ago
If capitalism worked so well, socialism would never have been born.
hwbanger 2 years ago 2
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You mean; if fascism worked well, socialism would never have been born, i.e. capitalism(laissez-faire) = free trade, which is the opposite of the centrally planned authoritarian/totalitarian collectivist systems(fascism/socialism), i.e. proponents of fascism/socialism etc are fond of using violence/coercion to achieve their goals?
nammoo89 2 years ago
@hwbanger If socialism worked so well, we'd all be typing this in Russian
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
Chomsky is NOT an economist . . . He is a linguist who pretends he knows something about economics
cmb6969 2 years ago
He has backed everything that he says with the most credable sources.
Chomsky is irrefutable.
genYprogressive 2 years ago 15
@genYprogressive Boy I'd like some of whatever the hell you've been smoking. And who the hell is the guy he sights - David Noble? He's not an economist; any economist at MIT - or even somebody who's taken Intro to Microecon as a college freshman - would no that NO COMPANY WOULD ENGAGE IN ANY PRACTICES THAT ARE DELIBERATELY UNPROFITABLE!
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis yes no other company with a few exceptions have done things that is not profitable. That is why Chomsky is showing how Milton Freidmans free trade bullshit has destroyed our manufacturing base. Read some history, we had protective tarrifs for a reason, so that corporations would not damage us in the name of profits. No other country has developed without protectionism, Freedmand destroyed this, and now we see the effects of it.
genYprogressive 1 year ago
@genYprogressive You have very little understanding of economics. The reason why free trade makes everybody richer - and why every respectable economist from Milton Friedman to Paul Krugman supports free trade - is because both countries gain from specialization according to comparative advantage. To put it another way: if China can make t-shirts cheaper than American textile manufacturers can, then American consumers gain because the t-shirts they buy are cheaper...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@genYprogressive ...Meanwhile, the Chinese benefit - obviously - by selling their product in the market. You seem to forget that all voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial, otherwise they wouldn't take place.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@TavaresDelanis exactly. people do business cuz it benefits them.
mmamolina 1 year ago
@genYprogressive And, about the "manufacturing base": whatever happened to our AGRICULTURAL base? When this nation was founded, 19 out of 20 people were farmers; the number is less than 1 in 20 today. We don't have a comparative advantage in farming anymore, such that we have an agriculturally-based economy. Similarly, we no longer have a comparative advantage in manufacturing - I'd argue because unions kept driving prices up for so many years on end - so are economy is no longer ManFact-based.
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
@genYprogressive That is FACTUALLY incorrect. btw, we don't evenm have free trade.
mmamolina 1 year ago
@genYprogressive So its irrefutable that businesses would hurt their bottom line so that they can engage in "class warfare" sounds pretty fucking retarded to me. What he is debating against is corporatism/fascism which isn't free market capitalism at all, so friedman shouldn't be tagged here.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
What a non-argument. Chomsky is a philosopher, in part in linguistics. But he's just as well done research in politics, economics, sociology, etc. This man is as close as anyone will ever get to being a genuine homo universalis.
photek1944 2 years ago 6
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I wish it went down, but I'm more happy Friedman is dead.
liamleahy 2 years ago
@liamleahy Friedman did more to destroy the Iron Curtain on the cultural end (his books were widely read and distributed in the underground) than any goddamn apologist-for-communism liberal ever would have done - including Noam Chomsky, an apologist for the Khmer Rouge regime. For his work for mankind, Friedman's secured a place in heaven - while Chomsky's got a nice warm spot in hell waiting for him...
TavaresDelanis 1 year ago
As a "video response", I have posted a video that is intended to fill the gap between this part of the talk ("2-6") and the one mislabelled "3-6". I titled it: "Noam Chomsky - Regan and Friedman Economics 2½-6".
watch?v=N2y-TDnigy8
yrrmom 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Chomsky's points:
-The Pentagon restructuring the manufacturing model in the US to empower managers and de-skill workers.
-Democracy and development's common enemy is the loss of sovereignty and neo-liberalism.
-The General Agreement on Trade and Services is used to sell democratic public services to unaccountable tyrannies.
-Financial liberalization creates a virtual senate capable of destroying economies.
-Globalization sets working people around the world against each other.
noahbwalter 2 years ago
Comment removed
noahbwalter 2 years ago
Fascism was a leftist movement. But in society always moving from left to right? How bout American liberalism to European socialism?
saligamachine 2 years ago
fascism was a leftist movement??
brunskill121212 2 years ago 4