ppatt

Take you seriously? No more than any other fraud. If you ever posted with intent to engage rather than to practice transparent self-aggrandizement I could take you seriously. Demostrate some intelligence and straightforward discourse and you might start seeing something different from a lot of people around here. This started going off course with your first post in the thread.

But keep on projecting. You can't seem to help it.

ppatt

Not so arrogant as ignorant and indirect, and a little less than intellectually honest.

The discussion moved off course as soon as you posted in the thread with your usual bullshit.

Then you are incable of intelligent discourse if it is not willful. I can't crawl inside your head nor would I want to.

When I hear something intelligent I will address it. It is not so much psychoanalysis as my observations on your style and posts. As to why you do it, I;ve got better things to do that to guess why. That's much deeper in shit than I'd like to go. I'm not asking you to be blown away but I do wonder why you boast so much and show us so little. Again, not losing any sleep over it.

Now that was expected. If you just lay it out without beating around the bush it is rude. Cloak it in "I'm sorry..." and "I hope.." or "I was just trying to..." changes nothing. You supply a steady stream of rich material for comment on all the way back to the great plaigarism hoax on the Maher board. It's always more of the same. I don't know how old you are but I really don't expect that to change, and neither will I so I suggest you do the ignore thing if you don't like it.

Promises, promises, but funny you mention it, I'd only just recently took you off after what had been a great way of raising the average IQ of the posts I saw.I like that...the high road, Posturing while taking the low road.

So kind of you to hope for me and to be the official board barometer of my seriousness, I'm touched. I take what is happening now about as seriously as Anhailla's aunt. It's called having a soul. It's as serious as the despair of those who cannot hardly make ends meet now, much less later after this plays out. I realize you as a bizarre source of amusement who pretends a lot. But I don't take it seriously enough to try to appear above it all or to convince you of anything.

Here's to your bilssful fantasies about yourself.

ocealdia

The feds bailing out bear stearns is welfare for the rich, plain and simple. There will probably be more corporations in the future that will be bailed out.
Meanwhile, this will trickle down to the regular wage earner to pay, pay, pay, and pay for.

DRS112

It was JP morgan..backed by the fed...but how is it welfare?

ppatt

By what they were willing to use as collateral for loans? If the free market was not buying then why should Uncle Sam? Whose money are they lending? Frances?

Doesn't this represent an expansion of government that would make Ronald Reagan turn over in his grave? Would it make him proud?

DRS112

not the tax payers....but...all commercial banks borrow from the fed...just not investment banks...such as Stearns...that's why JP had to do it...of course only at 1/2% higher than the rate the fed would typically charge. It's kinda weird...I still don't have a firm grasp on the fed try as I might...they're not the govt. though...highly regulated private bank with special privileges? Yep...

I'm sure some of Frances money is in there too.

ppatt

A lot of this falls under epistemology or "the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge". Exactly how does one "know"? How does one fill the "book" they refer to when they utter "in my book..."? I am certain of one thing -- that posting on the matter does not necessarily qualify one...

One can cite references ad infinitum but for me it is very telling as to whether one rejects all or most of the prevailing peer reviewed research on anything. There's been enough of this rejection of science, a constituent aspect of today's Republican party ( Amazon.com: The Republican War on Science: Chris... ). Whether a result of "true belief" or quid pro quo to the religious right, the result is the same -- irrationalism and anarchy. If that is the starting point in someone's reasoning, without any demonstrable basis then one must ask what the underlying agenda is. Perhaps only egotism.

Economic libertarianism is an experimental concept which, if advocated lock stock and barrel, would fail miserably because nothing about markets are free. There is the dreaded "R-word, r-e-g-u-l-a-t-i-o-n (to be spoken slowly, emphasizing each and every syllable in good 'ol "W" condescending fashion). This must surely have Reagan turning over in his grave, tax-raiser that he was. Markets are in no way natural. They are the creation of humans and are as distinct and varied as even humans. The markets that exist between Vermont and New Hampshire are different than those between North and South Korea. Just because we like one more than another does not mean that either are less of a creation of government.

To serve both producers and consumers efficiently, markets require openness and transparency. Even the Bush administration has now recognized this and the regulations they are apparently committed to instituting. The sub-prime crisis, Enron, derivatives and other exotic financial instruments were in many cases attempts to profit by operating in a shadowy realm just outside the reach of existing regulation. Corporations profiting by peddling some of the higher-risk financial instruments, often leaving other's holding the bag, adequately demonstrate the need for regulation over and above the type of caveat emptor that either Ron Paul or resident Jr. Economists here would have us believe.

This is not a matter of those at the wheel having merely missed a few things. It is indisputable evidence to alliegances made in return for patronage. Inasmuch as any student (to be distinguished from master) of economics reocognizes these aspects of markets to be true it was proactive support of the interests of a select few taken at great risk to the rest of us.

If I can say so, for sake of the example, without appearing to toot my own horn blaringly loud, I've worked with systems all my life and have all too often witnessed Jr. theoreticians (without proven dedication to a field of study or respect of others in the field) who've learned just a few bits of mechanics and immediately know just what is right for the system-at-large. In the few instances where I've seen them ascend, at least in my line of work, there has been complete and utter disaster...along with a litany of excuses in the form of what should have been and wasn't, in order for their predictions to have come through. Sometimes we do seek the best proven experts who will not need "do-overs" to get it right. Come to think of it, Bush might now want a do-over for our current economic state of affairs. However, that is not the fault of experts since Bush has demonstrated no trait of consulting them as a matter of practice and he has been known to ignore them in place of his private conversations with God.

When the solvency of the entire system can be threatened by the practices of a few, the risks are simply too great to embark on someone's draconian vision of an unprecedentedly free market when there are so many other crucial tweaks screaming to be made. This calls for regulation and with regulation comes less freedom, violation and even punitive measures for offenders. This is a far dry from the utopian free market that some dreamily cast as being natural.

That's just one of the many reasons why, despite the claims of unproven, untested, fringe theorists or others cutting and pasting their ideas, complex systems must evolve and be tweaked. It is why I'm compelled to trust those employing all of accepted science and mathematics in their projections. It is why I want there to be a community of peers, mutually reviewing work and playing devil's advocate for one another. Call it a market of ideas, if you will, but at least it's a free market -- any neophyte entrant can present revolutionary ideas and have them judged on their meritsand as it should be admission is free but good standing is not. If that doesn't work they can package them in qualititative terms that might garner support from laymen.

Notice that Bush himself, no doubt under advice of others, did not seek anyone from the Mises Institute -- he sought Ben Bernanke, economist and academician who wrote the basic book on how to respond to conditions that led to the Great Depression. That is the first demonstrable sign I've seen from Bush that when you don't know shit you seek out the most credible and revered authority who does. It is a different kind of authority that Bush has been accustomed to. It is the authority of knowledge and track record rather than the authority of "how-I'd-like-it-to-be". It is too little too late but better late than never.

KBlair7, in one post referred to the fact that I had nothing but rhetoric. I understand what her clumsily constructed words intended to communicate but for the moment I'll take her literally. By definition, rhetoric is persuasive speech and since ancient times (Socrates, in fact) it's been recognized that there are 3 primary forms:

• ethos, entails trust based on reputation of the speaker
• pathos, is based on appeal to the emotions
• logos, is based on the logic of the argument itself

I think what she meant to say was that I largely employed pathos in my arguments, the veiled implication being that she was the sole proprietor of ethos, at least with regard to the topic at hand. That was clear enough as she rattled off a list of well known economics terms accompanied by a condescending (she confessed arrogance so I'll split the difference) offer to explain them to me and, I suppose, the rest of you. I saw no evidence of ethos in that nor could anyone possibly have seen any because, in her typical bluster, there was none. Nor was their anyone stopping her. If she is truly as interested in fact as she'd have us believe then the onus is on her, self-admitted academic failure (pray tell us which actual field the attempts were in) and, in my opinion one who usually falls short when she finally does get down to the facts she claims to possess. Yet she continues to bate and bluster for her own form of fun rather than the serious pursuit of knowlege.

As someone put it, most of what we learned to be true we learned at an early age (Fulghum? but he said kindergarten). In this case, I've had one truism reinforced from third grade through grad school...as with mathematical proofs, if you really understand something then you should be able to explain it in your own words.

I once had the opportunity to speak with Jimmy Carter. Say what you will about him, he made a few good points. He talked about very basic human things though he had a degree in nuclear physics and knowledge of much more. He recounted the story of an old, blind, black man in a small Georgia town who sold pencils and other sundries on a street corner. The town fathers decided that this man, doing what he could as best he could, was an eyesore and passed ordinances that instantly criminalized this old man's sole source of livelihood. Carter made the point that everyone knows what is good for the community and in a democracy none know more or less than that old, black man.

Soppy sentimentalism? A point de-legitmized on account the employment of pathos? Decide for yourself but the points at hand do have a forest and trees aspect to them. When a system suits the needs of a small minority of the citizens and not the majority, this is something that democracy was intended to deal with. All too often people become absorbed in and self-congratulatory about having understood a few relationships of a complex system in isolation without regard to either the whole or whether the system works well for most people.

Beware of those who, with cursory study, make up answers to serious questions as they go. I would not call those people at 3am.

Brainpolice

As usual, you conflate current conditions with what is advocated by libertarians. Current markets are indeed not free. This, however, does not constitute a sensible arguement against the proposition that they should be free. You have presented assertions, but no argument.

Your own statements contradict eachother. Markets are natural in that they are the result of the spontaneous decisions of individuals. A "market" is simply the sum total of economic interactions between individuals. There is nothing "synethetic" about that. Markets naturally occur as a result of human action.

And the proposition that markets are the creation of government is rather absurd. People do not trade with eachother because the government exists. People trade with eachother because they have incentives to. If we woke up tomorrow and there was no government, such incentives would still exist and there would still be markets (I.E. a series of exchanges and the production of goods and services).

It takes a very nonsensical understanding of human nature to propose that the reason why people produce stuff and make exchanges is because the government. Clearly, people engage in such activities regaurdless. The belief that the government is the sole or fundamental reason why people engage in exchange and production is dogmatic and akin to a religion.

Both were blatant cases in which there was government intervention and monetary meddling that lead to problems. Both are the result of political policy. It hardly can be argued that they are the result of a non-existant laissez-faire system.

Except it is precisely corporatist regulation and intervention that allow such things to occur in the first place.

And patronage between private interests and the government is not laissez-faire. It is a political system of government favoritism and protection to select private groups. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this obvious point.

Your statements are highly rhetorical but not substantial. Do you have anything to present other then rhetoric? Please present and argument! Not rhetoric! You're not argueing against anyone's actual position. You're playing a rhetorical game.

Sigh. More rhetoric. And you're pointing to Bush's decisions as an example of what's credible and sensible? Wow. Just wow. Bernake, a monetarist who heads a central bank, is a reliable authority? Wow. Just wow. You do realize your statements can easily be construed in a pro-bush manner, right? You're making apologetics for the status quo and dismissing dissent as crackpottery.

Will you stop with the rhetoric and irrelevant statements already and make an actual argument?

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