LJ Libertarians' Journal
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
LJ Libertarians' LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 | 12:35 pm
[ford_prefect42]
 |
A thought on economics
I had an interesting revalation just a few minutes ago. NO ONE believes Keynesian economics. The proof for this lies in greece. When Merkel and Sarkozy were constructing bailout plans for Greece, they demanded in return, "austerity", or major cuts to government. A true believer in keynesian economic thought would have demanded *stimulus* as the most probable methodology by which the loans would be repaid. Ergo, QED, they do *not* believe that keynesian economics works when it's *their* money on the table. Which in turn, means that the entire "stimulus" concept is directly knowingly fraudulent. They are not "wrong", they are *lying* when they try to say that "stimulus" improves the economy. | | Monday, May 14th, 2012 | 11:34 am
[e2pii1]
 |
medical costs in the USA
Interesting opinion about why the medical costs in the USA are so high: http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/375299.htmlhttp://shkrobius.livejournal.com/375649.htmlVery briefly: - The medical costs increase primarily because people are willing to pay much for medical servises: the people's priorities are to live as long as possible and as "healthy" as possible. - The US medicine is more costly than in other countries because the US actually pays the cost of medical innovation which then can be reused by other countries almost for free. There are much more considerations at the links. | | Friday, May 11th, 2012 | 11:45 am
[rsokolov]
 |
Eva Danicheva, an activist of the Libertarian Party of Russia, confronted by riot police during the recent protests in Moscow.  "I looked ahead and saw three special unit cops charging towards me. I turned the flagpole sideways, blocking their path. They did not succeed in knocking me off my feet, but they broke the flagpole and dragged me towards the police bus, angrily tearing up the libertatian flag." | | Monday, May 7th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
[logiphage]
 |
France & Greece reject austerity
Great news, for us. France and Greece now seem dead set on proving in full measure the catastrophe that is Keynesian economics. The idiots like Paul Krugman will no longer be able to say: "It is only failing because enough wasn't spent!". These countries seem set to pursue doubling down on Keynesianism. And why not? State media outlets around the world have been telling people austerity is dangerous, and just the wrong prescription. You hear this on NPR every day. This is good news for us. They will set a tragic example for the world to observe that you cannot spend your way out of debt. When our turn comes, this may tip the balance. Americans never fully embraced the Keynesian fairy tale, so these examples will go a long way towards helping them make the correct choice. I hate to wish ill on others, but I was hoping for this result. In fact I hope they get more credit to run up their debts. I want these to be very stark examples. Austerity isn't the disease, nor so much the cure, as it is he symptom. The cause was running up the credit card. Paying it off isn't ever going to be fun, but you can't have sustainable growth until you do. Short term spending and fiscal expansion diverts capital into dead ends, it fools people into making choices , taking jobs, investing, in enterprises that cannot be maintained. That capital is lost when the spending and expansion cease, as they must, and real growth doesn't happen. | | Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 | 1:44 pm
[gunslnger]
 |
http://bastiat.mises.org/2012/05/want-to-have-less-of-something-make-its-provision-a-right/Andrew Carnegie who long ago proclaimed that “Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities”, along with Ludwig von Mises who found that “Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of the few rich people, only to become, after a time, the indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone.” Of course, a liberal reading this article will only see this: it’s important that at first doctors only save the lives of those who can afford unique, and very expensive treatment. and then whine about how only a heartless person could endorse this idea, totally missing the "at first" part. | | Tuesday, May 1st, 2012 | 11:34 am
[gunslnger]
|
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. ― Frédéric Bastiat, The Law | | Thursday, April 19th, 2012 | 1:38 pm
[gunslnger]
|
Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy
Part of an article by Doug Casey. I recommend reading the whole thing. One element of moral bankruptcy is intellectual bankruptcy, to wit, belief in the effectiveness of statism and collectivism. This is one reason why I counsel kids who are thinking of going to college (unless it's to acquire very specific knowledge in science, engineering, medicine or the like) to do something more intelligent with their time and money. The higher education system is totally controlled and populated by morally and intellectually bankrupt instructors who are believers in socialism. It's said Obama is a socialist. I don't doubt he's sympathetic to socialism but, to be true to the meanings of words, he's a fascist. Let's define these terms and two others with a little help from Karl Marx. His recommended solutions are part of the world's problems, but his analysis of conditions was often quite astute. As Marx pointed out, political systems are all about the ownership and control of goods, whether consumer goods (houses, cars, clothes, toothbrushes) or capital goods (farms, factories and other means of production). Although he didn't break it down this way, his analysis gives us four possible economic systems – communism, socialism, fascism and capitalism. A communist advocates state ownership and control of all the means of production and all consumer goods. That's a practical impossibility, of course, even in the most primitive aboriginal bands. The idea is even more absurd and preposterous for an industrial society. But that doesn't keep professors and politicians from pretending that it's a good idea, even if just in theory. A socialist advocates state ownership of society's means of production but accepts private ownership (with state control) of consumer goods. While it's a big improvement over communism, socialism is also completely impractical and always either collapses or evolves into fascism. North Korea and (now to a lesser degree) Cuba are the world's only socialist states. A fascist advocates nominal private ownership of both the means of production and consumer goods – but with strong state control over both. In other words, you can own mines, farms, and factories – but the state reserves the right to tax, regulate or even expropriate them. Fascism has nothing to do with jackboots and black uniforms; you can have those in communist and socialist states as well. It has to do with a corporate state and a revolving door between business and government, with each protecting and enriching the other. Fascism can be maintained for a long time but necessarily entails all the problems we now face. Almost all the world's states are fascist today; they differ only in degree and detail. A capitalist advocates the private ownership of everything. An extreme capitalist may be an anarchist, who believes that anything people need or want should be, and would be, provided by entrepreneurs at a profit. No country provides a perfect example of any of these four arrangements. But every government promotes one or the other as a theoretical ideal. In most places, certainly including the US, the "mixed economy" is put forward as a good thing; the "mixed economy" is a polite way of describing fascism. Nobody wants to call fascism by its name today because of its strong association with Hitler's "National Socialists." In any event, look and analyze closely before you use these words and attach any of the four tags to any country. In that light, it's funny how the Chinese are still referred to as communists, even though communism was tried only briefly, under Mao. In fact, up to the mid-'80s, China was a socialist state. Now it's a fascist state. China's Communist Party? It's just a scam enabling its members to live high off the hog. Sweden is usually referred to as socialist, but it's always been a fascist country. All of its means of production – businesses, factories, farms, mines and so forth – have always been privately owned but heavily taxed and regulated. The presence of lots of "free" welfare benefits is incidental. People often conflate a welfare state with socialism, but they're two different things. Socialist states necessarily become too poor to provide any welfare. Fascist states can better afford it and usually offer some in order to help justify the government's costly and annoying depredations. There is no truly capitalist state in the world today; perhaps Hong Kong comes closest (although not very close).The early US came quite close in some regards. In fact, the West as a whole was quite free in the century from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the start of World War 1 in 1914. Almost everywhere taxes were low and regulations few; there was no inflation because gold was currency everywhere; there were almost no serious wars and passports hardly existed, which enabled most anyone to travel almost anywhere without permission. It's no accident that, in percentage terms, the 19th century saw far greater and wider advances in prosperity than any time before or since. Capitalism is both natural and ideal – but, oddly, it doesn't exist anywhere. Why not? I'll explore that shortly. One sign of intellectual bankruptcy in the US is the absence of serious discussion about capitalism (except in small, specialized forums). Nearly all political debate is about how to fine-tune a fascist system to best suit those who benefit from it – or who think they do. Almost everyone in the public eye is a political statist and an economic collectivist. Those who start attacking the heart of the matter, like Andrew Napolitano or even Pat Buchanan, are quickly evicted from their bully pulpits. What made America unique was its foundation in a philosophy of freedom. That word, however, has become so corrupted that the younger Bush was able to use it two dozen times in some of his early speeches without being laughed off the stage or targeted with shoes and rotten vegetables. Perversely but predictably, Bush is today presented in the mainstream media as a free-marketeer, in order to pin blame for the current depression on the free market. This is as much of a hoax as calling Hoover a supporter of the free market. One is forced to acknowledge a bit of respect for Obama's intellectual honesty, in that he almost never speaks of "freedom" or "liberty." But pointing out the sad state of the world today serves little purpose. It's rare that an intellectual argument changes anyone's mind. Opinions are mostly a matter of psychology. But it's almost impossible to change someone's psychology and the attitude with which he views the world, simply by presenting facts and arguments. A person's beliefs have much more to do with his character and spiritual essence than anything else. | | Friday, March 30th, 2012 | 4:11 pm
[logiphage]
|
Hopeful re Individual Mandate Decision
Alito: " You might be right. But if that is the case then there is nothing left of Federalism" G. Verrilli: " As a practical matter .. it's not like the Federal Government is going to have an easy time of raising the kinds of tax revenues .. needed to raised to work that kind of fundamental transformation, and that is real. And political constraints do operate to protect federalism in this area."Scallia: " I would have thought there was a serious political strain — constraint on the individual mandate, too, but that didn't work. What you call serious political constraints sometimes don't work." ( So here is what I think will happen. ) | | Saturday, March 10th, 2012 | 5:56 pm
[lather2002]
 |
| | Friday, March 2nd, 2012 | 5:15 pm
[ridleyreport]
 |
| | Thursday, March 1st, 2012 | 11:42 pm
[hannarainolds]
 |
| | Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 | 9:15 pm
[hannarainolds]
|
Weapon of reality misrepresentation
Media controlled by powers that be work hard to portray the "controllers" in the most favourable light. But "what exactly are they doing? Smile on pictures, people fooling..." | | Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 | 1:40 pm
[lather2002]
 |
| | Sunday, January 29th, 2012 | 6:32 pm
[hannarainolds]
|
The forthcoming election of president in Russia scheduled for March 4, 2012 is already illegitimate. Why? Candidates from parliamentary parties and self-nominee candidates are set in unequal conditions in violation of Constitution. If you are a self-nominee you are to collect 2 million signatures of votes in you support, in......20 days! That is the price of registration you as a candidate. Sounds unrealistic, and it is actually so! That is how unwanted candidates are being sorted out from the election. Or maybe not all of them, if you are an oligarch, like Michael Prokhorov, and have enough money to fabricate those signatures, you are welcome to continue in the election race. On January 30, 2012 Russian fate will be at stake http://volya-naroda.ru/index/?axf_lang=eng | | Saturday, January 28th, 2012 | 2:50 am
[ridleyreport]
|
| | Thursday, January 26th, 2012 | 10:43 pm
[ford_prefect42]
|
A recent change in my position-set.
Recently, over at T_P, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) linked me to this article. www.businessinsider.com/you-simply-must-r ead-this-article-that-explains-why-apple-m akes-iphones-in-china-and-why-the-us-is-s crewed-2012-1 I read a few others on the same subject, and it got me to thinking. Previously, I had been of the opinion that our position was technically retrievable. Probably politically infeasible to do the things that were necessary to accomplish that, but still, as long as it's *technically* possible to recover, there's always hope. This change to the economic balance changes things. A lot. It means that *regardless* of what actions are taken by the federal government, our economy is going to collapse. We're facing 40 years at a *minimum* of declines in standard of living in the US and western europe. So, what's changed in my positions? The game has changed from "decline prevention" to "decline management". The longer it takes for the standard of living to drop, the better the chances of the populace accepting the reductions peacefully. If it happens over 10 years, there'll be a civil war, but over 40, it'll just be accepted. Either way, the endpoint is the same, the standards of living in the US coming to parity with that of present day China (adjusted for tech changes). So, given that, what's the change to my position? I have flipped my position on military cuts completely. Previously, I was of the opinion that It was probably necessary to maintain the global military presence to maintain "pax Americana", to keep the world trade lanes open, and to keep the flow of critical materials flowing. I am now of the opinion that we should reduce military spending by roughly half. Withdraw our troops from all military bases worldwide, and mothball all except 2 or 3 carrier groups. We should do this *as soon as is feasible*. Now, the reader may ask why *this* particular change? Several reasons. First, we can't afford it. We are looking at unavoidable and unsustainable deficits for the forseeable future. There's no *avoiding* that, but we *can* mitigate it. Second, the use of our military in that capacity subsidized our decline. China is able to trade worldwide because of the influence exerted by our military, at no cost to themselves. Withdrawing that influence would slow the growth of chinese industry, and would force the Chinese to construct their *own* military to keep their trade lanes free of piracy and harassment. Third, we, as libertarians take as an axiom that "free trade always benefitts both parties", and that's true... Unless there is an externalized cost unaccounted for. In this case, Our government bearing the cost of maintaining the trade route is an externalized cost that is, in many cases, great enough that the total transaction becomes a net negative. | 12:54 pm
[logiphage]
|
A Tale of Two Meltdowns
The first is fiction. The Mortgage Crisis: if we still had capitalism.Lenders go bankrupt. Lenders are forced to sell their assets at a discount. Historically we could estimate 25% to 35% of face value. Homeowners, underwater at 100%, would not be underwater at a lesser principle. They reach an agreement to adjust their mortgage so they are no longer underwater. For sake of example 50% adjustment of principal. They stay in their home. New lender makes a profit. If the borrower can't reach an agreement that keeps them from being underwater, they will walk away. No sane lender will allow this, and likely no insane people bought the loans. Even 30% on loan you bought at 25% is better than $0. Markets adjust in very short order, probably about a year. This is also historical. We can expect technology to only speed recovery time. The primary losers are the ones who should lose. The ones who risked their capital, the original banks. They make profit on accurately judging risk. They failed. The market judges them unfit to continue in this enterprise. Contrast with what actually happened: The Mortgage Crisis under Fascism.Before anything else! Most banks are bailed out. Banks hold assets, which if they write down, makes their capitalization questionable. So they will not renegotiate. They really cannot renegotiate. If they adjust a borrowers principle to say 50%, then their capitalization on the books is less by that amount. Federal regulators and the Fascist Reserve shut down banks all the time these days for insufficient capitalization. Except well connected big banks of course. Homeowners are trapped. Smaller Banks are trapped. Homeowners of good faith are impeded from relocating to where jobs are. For the morally rect note the effect: This encourages unethical behavior of walking away. This encourages uncharitable and unprofitable behavior of banks in not renegotiating. The real estate market cannot correct. Economic mobility is crushed and this ripples through the economy. A nimble correction is turned into a lost decade. Further intervention is demanded! Which will turn a recession into a depression. If you found this helpful feel free to 'redistribute':) | | Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 | 10:51 am
[wreckless1] |
| | Monday, January 9th, 2012 | 10:50 pm
[elaev_i_a]
 |
Be careful - in Mordovia, thief-prosecutor "Starling" in the chair!
In the old, pretty old days in Russia, everybody offenders called identical. Just a "thief". At the time of Peter I introduced the position of an official, who was supposed to catch these thieves. They were called too pretty simple - "prosecutor". But at the new political regime emerged and combined concept. This is when the prosecutor gives criminals "krysha" (it's the term of the Russian criminal jargon, which literally means "roof"). In jurisprudence appeared new term, which earlier sounded would some complex. Not otherwise than "thief-prosecutor". Very interesting example of this is situated near Moscow prosecutor, who gave "krysha" for gambling industry. And which only oddities you will can hear from them. It seems to be and according to the law of Russia, prosecutor is not supposed to engage in politics, but as soon as he was caught and arrested in the Polish court, he immediately asked for political asylum in Poland. And it turns out that "krysha" for gambling industry also a sort of politics. Indeed! Well this is where not far from Mordovia. Let us return to that closer to Erzya - "krysha" for criminals, which gives by the senior aide of prosecutor Republic of Mordovia Skvortsov Nikolay Arkadievich. Here is he sitting on the photo in 1997 year. Look closely! At the same time Skvortsov, who is also known as "Starling", is only planning to build their criminal business. Were near and such who tried to stop him. It did not help. However, recall the circumstances of the case. After my demands to institute criminal proceedings against the prosecutor Mordovia Sergienko, and his arrest, December 22, 2011, Skvortsov was caught on the bribe of 100 thousand rubles. No luck. Before not caught. Yes! Now Skvortsov, will not be able to fulfill his promise to assist in the recall of cassation appeal the prosecutor in a criminal case. Surely, we can to rejoice already now. And call out "Huzzah, Mordovia get rid of "Starling" who was the culprit of all our ills". But here's the problem. Skvortsov had no authority to decide issues on making appeals and their recall. Consequently, as the hiring manager, he settles another question entirely - formed a cadre of prosecutors Mordovia, so way so the necessary decisions to him were adopted. How decided these staffing issues, can be seen clearly in the example as was done in regard to me knowingly unlawful criminal prosecution in a criminal case № 14794 for almost 8 years, in the absence of a event crime. It should, incidentally, to mention that investigator, one of those who violated of my rights, was advanced at work and was appointed deputy prosecutor Ardatov district of Mordovia. Where also and Skvortsov was caught on a bribe, for which he was convicted by a court, sentence whom entered into legitimate force. And this is not the only example of condemnation of prosecutors, nominated by Skvortsov through the ranks. I must say that have 10 years ago I to layed an accusation for Skvortsov in infringement of the order of justice. And those same prosecutors refused to satisfy the claims in a criminal case against Skvortsov. In Mordovia the news about Skvortsov has been discussed for the second week. Count - how many collected HR-prosecutor-exactor Skvortsov, and how much to give for it. How many he collected will yet count, but will give him only a penalty in 5-6 millions roubles. Prosecutors always have some privileges. Will not even give a term for serving one's punishment for correction and rehabilitation. Continuing the thought, I would like to add. There is also in Mordovia prosecutors in resignation that do not meet the requirements. Their resignation should be stopped. Question by Skvortsov again raises this issue and we have to solve it themselves, without relying on those same prosecutors. This is the continuation of the July Revolution - the protection of ideas of social justice! A follower of the lawyer-Lenin's teaching Lawyer Ivan Elaev, Russia, phone: +79510538999, e-mail: I.A.Elaev@mail.ru | | Thursday, January 5th, 2012 | 1:36 am
[logiphage]
|
|
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
libertarianism
