A Recipe for the Next Great Depression | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Presented by Thomas DiLorenzo at "The Great Depression: What We Can Learn From It Today," the Mises Circle in Colorado; sponsored by Limited Government Forum of Colorado Springs and hosted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Recorded Saturday, 4 April 2009.

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[UEAdmiral]

Here's a better alternative, astoria3011: get rid of the minimum wage laws. That'll increase employment.

[velation]

"It just goes to show that winning a Nobel prize doesn't mean you know a damn thing about economics."

Qft.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra If you wish to draw our exchange here to a close, very well. But allow to me pose one more idea for consideration. You cite repeatedly, and I agree, that the elite exploit the government to stay rich. What, pray tell, do you think would happen if they didn't have the gov't to lean on? Nobody with the force of law to say "You there! Stop competing!" Somebody is going to beat them by pleasing the public better, and the elite fortunes will tumble. For business, boycott is scary.

[pvisserandorra]

@UEAdmiral Wealth and power are not going to fold because you propose an idea. You're points to me are beginning to assume I am ignorant and getting repetitive. You figure out a way to get rid of the elite establishment and we can talk again. Otherwise this is an exercise in mental self gratification.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra Yes, the current legal system disproportionately favors the rich. You must not assume present conditions to exist in a land without the state. Such conditions would be far less significant with competing courts of justice; courts that, if justice is not done within, would soon go out of business for lack of patronage.

Patents, by the way, are a product of the state. Patents treat ideas as a scarce good, when in fact ideas are more like air: everywhere and freely available.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra And before you raise the point of slavery's existence in the 1800s, I submit to you that conditions would have been that much better if the slaves were free acting individuals. Prosperity does not come from the exploitation of people. This is evident today, as we are becoming less prosperous by the day the more the state taxes and spends away our future. Were they free to improve their situation, they'd have done so, and benefited their neighbors at the same time.

[pvisserandorra]

@UEAdmiral Here you are truly naive. Farmers cant sue Monsanto for littering their fields with Patented Biologically Modified Corn. Monsanto has too much money, and so many staff lawyers that a farmer, even one with a big farm, cant risk litigation. They have to pay, even though Monsanto is wrong. The concept of litigation against much rich adversaries is unrealistic. If you have not been involved in litigation, you will have to take my word for it.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra This is where your economic illiteracy is harming you. The extreme disparities in incomes are a result of state intervention, not capitalism. I direct you to the 1800s in America: the state, for the most part, stayed out of things, and across the board, life improved for everybody without exception. Costs went down, incomes went up. There were depressions brought on by fractional reserve banking (allowed by the state), which set the stage for the Fed in 1913, which erodes us now.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra I prefer personal injury to death by starvation if those are my only choices. I suspect you would as well if put into the position. It is not immoral to interact with another in a purely voluntary manner. Do you condemn gays as immoral? Or roughness in the bedroom as immoral? Of course not. Voluntary interaction between consenting parties that does not violate another person's rights cannot be immoral.

[pvisserandorra]

@UEAdmiral Free markets without control deliver a world of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and disproportionately so. Having your face smashed in exchange for eating is not the kind of life I wish on anyone. You are envisioning a world where 80% of the population is in essence disposable, worth nothing. How are you so sure you won't be one of them? Maybe you should read some more Dickens.

[UEAdmiral]

@pvisserandorra I do not suggest turning everything into capital. That's a page out of Keynesianism. However, the costs you cite: pollution, health issues, traffic issues, all are absoluting infringements upon another's rights, and thus are prosecutable under law. They're clearly hurting people, and they're open to lawsuit to cease and desist, or conduct themselves in a way that does not so infringe. Simple concept here.