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"It’s Capital - We Guarantee It!"
From Bill Buckler, author of The Privateer
"It’s Capital - We Guarantee It!"
In any economy, “capital” is real wealth which has not been consumed. The production of new wealth is dependent on the supply of capital goods or factors of production - above all the tools essential to the task. A capitalist economy is impossible without a further form of capital - a medium of exchange or money. But money does not produce goods, it facilitates their exchange. Any money will do that, but SOUND money provides a still more important service. It allows for economic calculation. And without a reliable form of economic calculation, it is impossible to discover whether a given process of wealth production is viable or not. A SOUND money allows for the reliable calculation of profit or loss in any enterprise. By doing that, it acts to minimise the loss of real wealth by directing new capital into profitable uses and diverting it from uses which do not pay their way.
This is the only process by which any nation can become prosperous. It is entirely short-circuited when the common denominator in all economic calculations - money - is produced by edict and not by effort. It has long been known that it is impossible to “create” wealth out of thin air. It has long been held that money and wealth are synonymous. It is now a tenet of market faith that when it comes to creating money out of thin air - literally anything goes. The contradiction is as glaring as it is ignored.
Today, capital is taken to be a sum of money. This nominal amount is “guaranteed” by government edict and central bank power. The purchasing power of that money is also “guaranteed” by central banks to fall over time but only in carefully controlled annual increments. This is known as “inflation management”. Every central bank has its preferred rate of inflation. Every one of these rates bears no relationship whatsoever with the pace at which these same central banks are creating it out of thin air.
The economic - AND MARKET - distortions resulting from this practice have long since become incalculably huge. They have been fixed into economies everywhere. They must be corrected before any type of genuine wealth creation can once more come forth. That process will crystallise huge losses because of the huge misallocation of REAL capital that has already taken place. There is no way over, under or around this situation. The world is simply going to have to go through it. The longer the paper “capital” underpinning investment markets is preserved, the more painful this process will become.
Capital can NEVER be “guaranteed” - it can only be produced. And governments produce NOTHING.
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The interstate highway system...Integrated circuits...NASA and satellites that allow your cell phone to work... the internet... all from taxpayers dollars. Procurement. What have the American people chosen to spend their money on? Giant SUVs past the peak of oil production? Foreign made shit-- sending all our money overseas (never to come back) just to live a higher standard of living? The USA is fucked and it isn't because YOUR ideology was never tried... it was and it failed.
Where did the Capital to do those things come from exactly ?
Govt. takes and sometimes spends wisely,but at exhorbitant cost.
Recently not at all.
The capital came from labor and the marshall plan, etc. But the government served a very VERY big role in the 1950's and 60's... it shouldn't be disparaged-- those technolgies are probably the top 4 freedom-giving things we have in America today and they all came about thanks to govt money funneling. And I'm not letting the american people off the hook... they spent all their wealth away in nauseatingly stupid ways 1980 onward. but hey-- we had the right to destroy our own nationstate if we wanted right?
Recently not at all... Yep... Those Wars.. That debt we owe the FED... That borrowing...
Typical dumbass non-logic.
Taking capital away from those who generate it, to piss away on some government boondoggle (interstate highways), is followed by the sheep (you, dumbass) reciting all the great things the interstate highway system did for us. Without being smart enough to realize that, were the capital employed by its rightful owners, without some dickhead stealing it from them, we might (for example), all have developed an alternate source of transportation which was more efficient, better, more rational.
However, the typical dumbass (you, THX), are only able to see what is in front of them, not what was destroyed by the theft which occurred, and certainly not the things that may have been created had the theft NOT occurred.
But, you are just a dumbass.
It is really hard to get people to think of the opportunity cost when we dont know exactly what opportunities have been lost by wasteful government spending.
You would think people would be more enlightened since Bastiat's days
But you ignore those that have been gained! You'd think Americans would be more humble... oh wait... no you wouldn't. GODDAMNED SOCIALISTS WITH THEIR CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS AND MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES! Enjoy the crash!
After us Americans took the bait (free trade), it is a given that we can't find our ass in the dark. We still love, and want "free trade". All the while looking for the jobs that "free trade" sent out of America to China. Jobs are like money. Every job came at the cost of some other one losing their job. One can not "make" jobs. That said; One can make a lot of money moving jobs over seas were labor is cheaper.
Free trade didn't send jobs out of America, loose monetary policy and a debt based economy did. When you consume more than you produce, the extra has to come from where they produce more than they consume. Production will cost more where you are and less where the extra is coming from. Capital will flow there, to where it is most efficient ... and take the jobs with it.
I could not disagree with you more about the cost to our country that free trade caused. When most people have a choice about the cost of any item, they vote with their money (WalMart and cars). Before free trade, the cost of goods sold here were taxed to keep America's living standard. Free trade was sold to us on the lie that other's would see their standard of living (wages) rise to our level. So this would make for "new" markets for America's exports (new jobs here). About loose monetary policy & dept; The TBTF's give out $30 Bl in bonuses per year. FDR stopped that in the 30's, only to have his work (laws) trashed in the 90's (Super PAC's). Nothing was broke, so they fixed it. So far nothing has changed in our laws. Expect nothing to change in our economy. I see corruption behind both free trade and the TBTF. We have crime without punishment, and the lose of he middle class.
The Titanic is sinking and you are mad that the first class cabins are nicer than yours.
Btw ... FDR is pretty much the Iceberg in this metaphor.
you don't know what you are talking about.
Ultimately it comes down to a choice. No one forced any americans to buy anything foreign. That was a choice made by the dumb ol' consumer. If the american people had refused to buy foreign crapola with their money, the corporations would have come back... but the temptation of a slightly higher standard of living was just too much... we bit, and now the good ol' USA is done for. It is kind of embarassing to be done in by our own greed huh? Not defeated in a war, but by our own consumption. Well, thats what we are these days (isn't it?) just a bunch of consumers. No one seemed to have a problem with it until the economy crashed-- then suddenly, "Where have all the jobs gone?" You sent them overseas, bucko, it's all your fault. Look out below!
There is no such thing as "free". Every one wants the other guy to buy American so he can save his job, and then he saves money shopping WalMart. We had tariffs for a reason (do as I say, not as I do). The honor system just never worked that well. But you right on about greed. I fear we will have to really hit the bottom before any meaningful change comes.
No, its over for us, there is no going back. NWO here we come.
THX,
agree with you sort of, but only that we were done in by greed. You see, the greed that really did us in was our govenrment insistence on having the world's reserve currency. That is what enabled us to run a current account deficit for so long, and this current account deficit is what made exporting jobs perpetually viable. Had we not had the world's reserve currency, our continued printing and borrowing, which is what fed the current account deficit, would have weakened our currency to the point that it made more sense to manufacture here than elsewhere.
Thus it was govenrment hubris and pride in "exporting our central bank expertise", as it was so hilariously and earnestly put at one point by some flat world hack schlepping their myopic pollyanna version of globalization, plus the fact that free printing enabled all sorts of government pork to buy votes, that actually sank the US manufacturing base. So yes, it did come down to a choice. Our government could have endorsed sound money and thereby retained the ability for prices to truly signal supply and demand, using tariffs as a fence to prevent others from using monetary policy as a lever to pry distortions into our pricing system, and in the process avoiding the whole Triffin dilemma.
But, you can't expect politicians to refrain from the cheese. Our political class has been degrading since the Civil War erased the balance of power between states and the Federal govenrment. The Federal Government resultant monopoy on power has had the same effect that all monopolies always do -- they provided a minimum of politician quality at a maximum of cost. Such that we have had idiots rising to power for a long time, so ignorant of history that they don't recognize a reserve currency pattern that is traced out over and over. They think we are special, and whine and moan about how unpatriotic Americans refused to buy American and thus sunk the American Dream when in fact it was the political system addiction to superficial plastic surgery skin deep nips and tucks and economic fillers and massive fake DD prosperity boobs that put paid to the whole thing.
the chinese products, have american names, like black and decker, or porter cable
The jobs left because of the various direct and indirect cost increases imposed by US govt. policies. Note, it has now become possible for an unemployed US Citizen to live a much better lifestyle on money stolen by the govt. and given to them than the average Chinese worker every hope to attain. Which US free market capitalist was it exactly who promoted that system?
Who cares?
Can't really come up with a greater display of epic fail than the once most prosperous places in the world now being dead broke thanks to ludicrous social obligations. Much of it with high taxes.
The governments are the largest employers, consumers, borrowers, lenders, landlords, tenants,
real property owners, they control and manipulate or at the bare minimum distort every market,
they are the largest single economic beneficiary of every economic transaction,
and the result is the once most prosperous places in the world, Cook County Ill for instance after the Erie Canal opened are dead broke. Their credit is junk.
This doesn't even include the de evolution of the conformist big government ediucation system,
the revolving door justice system, the epidemic single parent households,
the McDonalds like primary care,
the 35% tax and regulatory burden on full time hires that enabled a multi billion dollar temp agency to flourish charging 30%, who's sole purpose is to avoid government regulation. Know how good the drugs would have to be to consider opening a labor intentisive business in the current US a good idea?
the fact that payroll is so complicated in some parts of the country one has to employ a third party,
a tax code that not one single human being comprehends,
people do not work to support their families anymore, their main dependents are the governments.
could go on for two days plus,
this is the posterchild for failed dumb too big governance.
Effective governance works if it didn't the human race would never have advanced at the rate it did in the 20th century unless one is delusional, ineffective or dumb governance is regressive, it takes the human race backwards.
First time I have EVER agreed with you!!
Your whole argument is a big hypothetical. What do you think would have been invented? Teleporters? Jetsons style flying cars? That can't seriously be your argument!
Whatever developed in its place would have been more efficient and less costly than the government alternative. Is truck travel or even people travel on the interstate the most efficient use of resources? Hardly.
Spending less to solve one problem means more spending available for other purposes
Not necessairly, in the long run, such public works add tremendously to efficiency. It might not be that way in the short run, but in the long run, this leveraging more than pays for itself.
The gov't didn't produce it.
Yes they did. They taxed the population (theat was gonna spend it on something stupid anyway[Americans]) and spent it on something useful.
You are the most tryhard troll on this forum, you even up arrow yourself? ... That being said, taxing and spending is not production.
of course we know best comrade
If government public works pay off in the long run due to leveraging these alleged efficiencies then japan is gonna be the mightiest economy in the world in the future
It just depends on the kind of spending. Welfare spending is not productive, but certain govt procurements are-- less then 100% but more than 0% of them. It just depends... ARPANET and the integrated circuit are no-brainers. All ZHers are indebted to them.
All I know is that I’m glad Al Gore took time out from inspiring “Love Story” and having his chakra rubbed to invent the Internet for us.
I have been awaiting the movie version of the Gore saga. Love Story II: Misguided Chakra Search
There's no question that some of the resources spent on developing military-related things wind up developing things useful to civilians.
However, telling us to believe such serendipitous crossovers are more likely to produce civilian goods than everyday, entrepreneurial-related research that is aimed directly at satisfying consumer needs is quite a big ask - and it's the latter research that necessarily suffers when gubmint decides to direct resources towards military applications rather than consumers and entrepreneurs deciding what to do... with THEIR OWN money.
Personal Rapid Transit, for example.
Massive subsidies for highways, and for rail prevents replacement by superior technologies.
Facebook just generated $100 billion in capital. Are they going to do something that generates greater economic growth than the interstate highway system?
You're right. Instead of wasting their money on Facebook, 'they' should have bought V22 Ospreys instead.
The US Federal government has spent many multiples of the amount raised by Facebook on pointless (at best), but usually detrimental things.
For every interstate highway system they develop, the government has wasted ten times as much on nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons delivery systems, Homeland Security, the TSA, pointless and wicked military interventions overseas.... need I go on?
Granted. Trillions wasted in Iraq/Afghan. Trillions wasted in Cold War. Even more than that wasted on giving our technology to Japan, Korea, etc.
I read a recent comparison of the cost of the Interstate system to the current govt stimulus programs. The number developed was the the adjusted inflated cost of the Interstate Highway system is $400 billion. The Obama Stimulus program, overseen by Joe Biden as Czar, was $800 billion. Now I still see Chrissie Mattheewws tellin me that there are bridges that need to be repaired. It would take a whole lot of Tazaring to make be believe that the current government could get money's worth in a Woolworth store.
Indeed. Whatever you think of FDR, comparing Obama to him does a disjustice to FDR ...
I am not so certain that government spending is why we have electronic circuits satellites and other such things. The total amount of money that the government has spent in all areas probably doesnt justify the return. Communication satellites would have developed organically wirhout the wasteful extravagance of manned space flight, or spending a billion dollars to send a few rovers to mars
Think how many universities could have been endowed with that billion dollars. How many scientists could have been trained. That is one opportunity cost of those stupid martian rovers
Universities are just a satellite of the imperial federal gov't ... they exist primarily as indoctrination centers and as a way to funnel money to liberal causes and "experts" friendly to the growth of gov't. You ask how many scientists could have been trained with a large endowment? I submit to you that our most prestigious universities have multi-billion dollar endowments that are NEVER used to help the student body already ,, why pad their checking account.
That is just one example of opportunity cost. Please dont missthe forest by focusing on a single tree
Satellites are much easier to engineer than the rockets that would take them up. Especially when you see those old reels of dozens and dozens of failed launches. That must have been expensive. A little too expensive for any corporation trying to put satellites up on the off chance someone might need (or could use them) them in the future.
Then satellites wouldnt have gone up until there were a compelling need, and they might be going up really cheaply by a 100 mile magnetic rail gun rather than rocket if market forces had been left to their own devices
What company is going to build a 100 mile rail gun when there is no market for whatever can be put up there?
Once people can calculate the communications efficiencies and profits from certain types of satellites I bet fifty billion of venture capital could haw been found. How much is facebook capitalized? Google?
Where'd you get that number-- 50 billion?
Facebook?
spacex, built a successful launch vehicle, for peanuts, compared to nasa's effort.
A rocket. A space rocket. Standing on the shoulders of giants huh. You could make the same argument about integrated circuits. A computer today made by apple is infinitely cheap compared to the ones produced and procured by the government in the 50's, but the only reason that is is because the govt flogged a great deal of cash at IBM until the I-circuits (and i-circuit producing machines) could be made cheap enouogh to see to the private sector. The same is true of spacex-- they ONLY NOW can produce this effect by piggybacking tremendously on NASA. Spacex needed NASA's effort to bring the cost down.
Tell that to the fucking Germans: they designed the V2 (progenitor to ALL fucking rocketships - moron) on a fucking shoestring.
The US space program was a joke piggy-backing off the work of a couple German mad scientists.
Other than putting satellites into space, what other good has come from the countless billions squandered on NASA and other space programs?
Supported by nazi govt spending right?
You're not seeing it. Quite the clown wind-up toy here.
An invention is developed with a small resource allocation over a small number of years, doing what it takes most states billions + and decades. Is that an argument for Nazism, or an argument for the people who were doing the inventing? Totalitarian states of all stripes have tried to reproduce what the Nazis did with a shoestring, and they failed. So, remind me, is that an argument for the people doing the inventing, or are you proposing we all ought to adopt the Nazi model. But shit, you wouldn't even know whether I was lying or not about the V2 you dumb fuck.
Yeah, great inventions for killing people came out of Nazi Germany, but you're basically making the claim that we wouldn't have made it to the moon without them? Isn't that right? Because as you've claimed earlier, inventions can only happen once in an irreproducible singularity - otherwise, they never happen at all.
So yeah, if we want to advance our society all the way, we can't do any of this jerk-off military industrial complex like in the US, we need to go full retard Nazi style. Cause that government knew how to invest to get results.
This is a total misrepresentation of the argument we've been having. It was about gov't+private sector vs. full on free-market. Not USA MIC vs NAZISM. Nice try.
No, you said that no corporation could afford the R&D to develop rocket flight. InjuredThales said it needn't be all that expensive, giving as evidence the few resources the (coincidentally) nazi scientists had at their disposal to do... just that.
NOW do you understand?
I "need" not be all that expensive? A 100 mile magnetic rail? Not expensive? The Nazi Scientists did not have "few" resources and we we're discussing space flight, not just rocket flight... BIG difference. Also, you have to keep in mind this was during the cold war when USSR had alread outpaced us with sputnik and Yuri gagarin put up with rocketry. We were not going to wait around until a corporation developed this rail gun "whenever." And yes, it would still be monstrously expensive. I understand you are an ideologue.
I never mentioned rail guns, let alone '100 mile' ones. I was merely pointing out that rocketry does not take nation-state levels of coercively-redirected resources to develop.
Nice try.
We were not going to wait around until a corporation developed this rail gun "whenever."
Who's this 'we'? Let's play spot the government-pork fed propagandist.
A lot of bullshit here. Like if we repeat the lie often enough maybe people will really believe Germany built the US rocket program.
NASA brought better weather forecasting which led to more efficient farming and saving lives besides? Or that doesn't count? I am sure they're responsible for significantly more important improvements in materials and so forth, but I'll go with the one any imbecile should come up with in 10secs.
As far as the rest of the bullshit:
For instance the government processes medical claims cheaper than the private sector, something any rational human being would consider an impossibility.
Likewise the military spending scorecard includes computer chips, GPS, LCD TVs, microwave ovens just off the top of my head and a lot of the other tech advances even if not directly military were the results of tech companies and speculators having income from the military to take a chance developing other crap.
While the government monopoly with Ma Bell probably prevented us from getting cell phones ten years earlier.
2/3rds of the federal budget gets me jackshit, the other 1/3rd has contributely significantly to improving my life. It is what it is.
Rocketry, no-- space flight that happens to be via rocket, yes. Much more complicated.
Also controlled access highways, they built them to move armies around faster but still...
Likewise rockets, they built them to bomb London but now we have space/comsat.
Likewise jet engines, built for war but benefits later.
Internet was built to survive nuclear war not to enable drunken idiots to argue here.
US space program was Nazi V-2 supervised by the head Nazi in charge of V-2. Russian's program also Nazi led but US got the better ones.
We would have made it to the moon but probably 20 years later.
Government is not concerned about the investment return. The purpose of spending on satellites was to detect if the USSR was getting ready to nuke us. Since we didn't get nuked, one could argue that the return was incalcuably high.
Maybe to quote a friend of mine we are subsidizing the wrong people.
@THX1178
What makes you think that you can shout the truth at this mob of muppets and get away with it?
Congratulations and a million greens to you, sir!!!!!!
Few here have any idea of history because all they have is the revised version of the Marshall Plan and the Welfare State of Corporations with their loans guaranteed by the the----who do you say???-----Ah, yes,----
the American taxpayer. Now, I remember.
But that created jobs and wealth----shit, I never thought of that----what do I say to my TP friends???
All right, THX---It is your page, but , yeah, you're tellin' it like it WAS. Thanks om
I wanted to support you and give you some thumbs ups, but "freedom giving things?" What the hell does that mean? Cell phones "give" freedom? Technology doesn't "give" freedom. And, in fact, it seems to be taking it away...
Quite an excellent response and analysis. Citeing five good outcomes does not make justification for the thousands of wasteful bridges to nowhere. The overall pattern has been a tremendous drag on an otherwise excellent model of increasing prosperity.
A) Actually, no those inventions aren't from taxpayer dollars. Those inventions and discoveries are the result of the work of very specific people whose work happened to have been funded in some part by taxpayer dollars.
B) Understand the difference between what is seen and unseen. What is seen: the result of government funding of specific INDIVIDUALS whose work resulted in technological or scientific progress. What is unseen: what those individuals would have accomplished without government money AND what other individuals would have accomplished had they had continued access to the resources plundered from them by the government.
C) There isn't enough space in the comment box for me to note all the scientific and technological break-throughs that weren't made under government auspices. There are millions of tiny and momentous discoveries each year that make our lives better, improve processes or enhance our understanding that aren't funded by government.
Like an anorexic, you can never see the changes that matter because you don't see the small increments. So you'll always think you're too fat (probably true, but beside the point), or that our society hasn't progressed. Please try to cure yourself from your government-induced psychosis.
It doesn't matter who created the technologies the only reason they were created is because the market to support their experimental activites was there. The free market did not support these activities. Government procurements take a long time to pan out, which is why most people see them as money pits. The v-22 osprey to nearly 25 years to perfect and it is now perhaps the most versatile aircraft on the planet. I understand that there are non-government breakthroughs-- this is obvious to anyone-- but these four seem pretty important, no? There was no civilian deman for a space program because it wan't even known if space travel could be accomplished. The only reason any rockets were built and sent up was govt spending (for military/defense application or otherwise.) You are telling me that some group of engineers in the 1950's with their own billions of dollars would have sent rockets into space, and satellites and put men on the moon. There was a civilian market for this? the free market demanded this? There was no demand for the integrated circuit in the 1950's when it was first produced because it was too expensive and PCs didn't exist yet. Fast forward a mere 30 years and IBM began selling these massivle procured chips to companies like... wait for it... AAPL!!! The I-Highway system was the largest (ongoing) public works project in American history. It it wasn't ordered to be built by Eisenhower, do you think the free market of the time would have supported it? No. I'm not suffering some government induced psychosis, however you may be suffering some sort of childhood brainwarshing...
Your response isn't a rebuttal: it's just digging in deeper. Thanks for the history lesson teach!
This is a classic case of "if it wasn't invented there and then it never would have been invented at all". Ok. Sure. Nice try. Clear that you've never actually been involved in the creative process for anything (as evidenced by your pavolvian response to government conditioned since elementary school). What did Einstein say "it was only by standing on the shoulders of giants". Well, your friends over at the gov. did just that homeboy.
Yeah, all those years in government-run schools and universities sure brainwashed me to hate government. 'Cause that's why the Prussians implemented the whole public education system right? So that kids wouldn't be brainwashed into unthinking automatons and elect a fucking monster? Oh yeah, right. Government-run education: great track record off success there.
Sure it's a rebuttal-- look harder-- WHO made the products doesn't matter-- the presence of a market and the presence of funding DOES MATTER. Besides, the rockets we put up we built mostly by the German scientists we brought over via Op. paperclip. Those giants? Funded by NAZI govt spending? In all honesty, I don't love the government. In fact I hate it. I hate the private sector too because it necessarily generates corporatocracy. Thats why I go on ZH, because I think we're fucked. And no I'm not a brainwashing victim and so on... I just want people to humble themselves and not think they are such hot shit when most of what they have is actaully from the govt... The world we are moving to will require a great deal of humility.
To you thx1178, "The world we are moving to will require a great deal of humility." Yes, in the world you invision men will humble themselves before the almighty state and bow to it's power,or be killed. " For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers,disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable,malicious, gossips, without self-control, brutal,haters of good, trecherous, reckless, conseited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; always learning but never coming to the truth." Now does that just about tag you, or what? And tonight you are lucky, I have no more patience for ilk like you.
Lets capitalize all the costs of the v 22 osprey and compare it to its economic benefit. Mass tilt wing transportation? Lol
Also I would arguethatevena blind hog finds an accorn now and then. That doesnt mean it is an efficient acorn gathering instrument
And if blind hogs werent required by law or funding source to look for acorns perhaps we could have found something better
How many lives has it saved? How many lives will it save in this upcoming war we all know is coming?
Tell that to a mass-produced ground to air missile from Soviet Russia: $200 price tag to bag a $200 million Osprey. What a deal!
The fucking things are plagued with design flaws and mechanical issues and you are holding them up as an ideal?
Ospreys are just more advanced economy jerking off for fighting rag tag bands of militia with no sophisticated weaponry. China has the answer to the Osprey: it costs $200 bucks. The technology was developed back in the 50s.
Is a mass produced missile going to transport 5 severely wounded infantrymen to a hospital faster than a helicopter, thereby increasing their odds of survival?
These V22 Ospreys sure sound great!
Where can I get mine?
Bubba, the Osprey is a money pit! It's a definite case of stupid in action.
Strap a couple of $200 Soviet rockets to a Chinook and BAM! Problem solved for $400 and an occy strap. See?
what about government assisted suppression of technology. tesla, welhelm reich, fuel effeciency increasing inventions etc? talk about a negative real return, .gov at it's best.
how about i end this nonsense right now by stating that which everyone seems to overlook: the reality of what you are arguing is not so black and white -- gov did invest in RD and infrastructure and various tech grants which did result in let's say breakthroughs and productivity gains VS not investing whatsoever the monies which they STOLE from the private sector in the form of taxation; we could also hypothetically posit that if same monies were not stolen, then the private sector would have surpassed said gov induced progress -- who the hell knows to which extent and how much of this or that innovation would have come as a result of how monies were distributed.
I'm against taxation, but let us not forget that the reason communist nations generally transition so well into quasi-capatilistic systems is due to infrastructure and i will say that private sector in the 50s-70s would only have provided said infrastructure if someone was paying, namely, gov..... Gov can pay for everything by selling bonds and some discreet CNTL+P rather than raping with regressive taxation.
Or the private sector could have spent them on $50 million dollar houses, expensive hookers, casino trips, yachts with helicopter pads, diamonds, furs servants, private islands, etc.
The problem is in the aggregate it is not close.
Even with the 90% of private ventures fail, it still is not close.
The bubble economy advances mankind faster than the ordered existence of some academic doling out resources from an ivory tower.
But can't spend the kind of money the world governments spend and not make a significant difference.
let us not forget that the reason communist nations generally transition so well into quasi-capatilistic systems is due to infrastructure
You're suggesting infrastructure was better in 1980's China than in 1940's America?
The reason communist countries transition 'so well' (really? Russia hasn't done so well, has it?) is because they're dirt-poor, agriculture-based societies that switch over to industrialisation, which produces a boom in (relative) growth. The capital and expertise required to effect this transition is more easily and efficiently raised via capitalism than communism. Furthermore, all the technology developed by their more sophisticated capitalist rivals is available to exploit, increasing their ability to 'leap-frog' out of poverty.
No, but during the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's USSR's infrastructure rivaled USA's. China's infrastructure, shoddy as it may be rival's USA's presently, crumbling terribly as it is. Russia is doing better than we are... you just don't see it yet. Wait until the world unloads our capitalist pertodollars. RIP USA.
No, but during the 50's and 60's and even into the 70's USSR's infrastructure rivaled USA's. China's infrastructure, shoddy as it may be rival's USA's presently, crumbling terribly as it is.
This is the thing about infrastructure - it's a cost. Yes, like many costs in business, it may enable the organisation to increase its overall productivity, but that's not a given, and expecting a bunch of central planners to allocate such resources better than the private sector flies in the face of all historical evidence. Maybe the USSR had fairly decent infrastructure compared to the USA, but in terms of consumer goods it way way behind in every other respect.
The elites have done well in Russia recently because of its fossil fuel exports. Its economy is even more corrupt and crony than ours... which is saying something.
Integrated circuits: Texas instruments. The demand was there from any company soldering electronics manually.
The car created demand for highways and the first were privately created by highways associations.
The first computer networks were used in educational institutions, but telecoms companies like Bell were key to R&D. TCP/IP was only one (and not the best) of the competing protocols which allowed networking.
Yes. Well there you go, i'm sure you are very proud. Except, the idea that government procurement caused all of the above to be produced is patently false. It did however definitely distort the market and as you say, create massive waste at taxpayers expense.
EXcellent except that Ma Bell was a government monopoly and TI like every other major electronics firms at the time got huge revenue from the military. So even if what they weren't difrectly working for the military, guess where their revenue to support other projects came from?
Otherwise that would be a great rebuttal post.
How about GPS, LCD TV, microwave ovens, cell phones.-yea sorry Ma Bell government monopoly so they are on this side of the ledger, satellite communications., I must be forgetting about 100 other things afterall I didn't include anything medical, from sorry the earth is round not flat world.
As an addendum to my last comment, do you think there's enough space in the cloud to list all the things government has spent money on that don't make THX1178's list?
It doesn't matter that you hit big home runs if your batting average is .0000001. I think there's a movie about that.
Lol even the blind hog finds an acorn now and then
The Austrian viewpoint is that some government is, indeed, required. In addition, government actions should be limited to things which its citizens cannot do for themselves. With this said, rockets, if being developed by an aggressor, should be subsidized by the government in order to help protect the country - assuming such subsidies benefit our collective security. However, further spending so people can walk on the moon should not have been done...in my taxpaying opinion.
What is really being argued here is not whether government should be absent the market altogether, but that they should be absent almost always. When the government spends taxpayer money as wastefully as they do today, it's clear that they've grown far beyond their original purpose. This is my takeaway from this article.
Your articulation that it government waste outweighs its accomplishments drives home this point. +1
No but your fanaticism is no less retarded than his.
The reason we are fucked is because we have deviated from sound money - we tried YOUR way and NOW we are fucked. If the FED was never created, we were on a gold standard and the senate was still appointed by the state - not via fixed elections in manipulated voting districts we would not have these problems. The government did not manufacture these items they just procured them as you noted. The items you listed were created by pre-existing enterprises and many would have been created anyway. Many times the government will over procure these items and waste immense mounts of capitol - roads to no where, solyndra, $1M toilets, GM, Fannie, Freddy, etc. etc. I always love it when people complain that somehow "capitolism failed" - we havent had capitolism for years and the nonsense that led us hear certainly isnt capitolism. It is "Crony Socialism".
Who created the fed? Businessmen. Period. not Marxists or socialist intellectuals. Fucking Businessmen. Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Schiff, Rothschild, etc. They are products of the free market. They don't like competition. This is what capitalism is-- it looks good on paper, but it happens to generate fascist corporatocracy every time. And you want a free market? Why? so it can get worse? You are totally fuck no matter what.
How could I forget the that the Federal Reserve Act was not an act of Congress. It certainly wasn't signed into law by Woodrow Wilson. That is not a free market at work. We both know it.
That is exactly what a free market is... in real life. Not on paper of course, but... all ideologies look good on paper right? You know how they say that about communism-- looks good on paper, doesn't work in real life, etc... OK, now apply that to free markets: Looks good on paper, doesn't happen to work in real life. Generates monopolies and cartels (like the FED) and sends its lackies on the campaign trail (VPs Rockefeller, Cheney). This is exactly what a free market is. COngress and the president are bought and paid for... just like TODAY!!!! OMG!!!
I do believe the government did it. Getting the government to do it is not capitalism.
Business men are not by definition capitalist. If the government didn't have their hands out you couldn't bribe them.
Capitalists getting the governemnt to do it is capitalism. Businessmen are by definition capitalist. The government can have wads of cash shoved into their breast pockets. They can even have their families threatened.
No, that is feudalism. Capitalism works best when the government doesn't have the power to "threaten" people.
Looks good on paper... but you can't get what you want. Free markets generate the world we are living in today. I don't mean free markets on paper, but free markets in real life.
Paraphrasing Adam Smith - Scarely can two capitalists get together than they commence some plan to rip off the consumer.
If you want a pass then paraphrase a little closer to the text.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
Less PBS brainwashing, more American Idol programming.
Death to the government!
As you type this over the internet...
Moron troll: please get the fuck out.
Exactly how did the government produce the Eisenhower highway system? You need to stop posting such pigslop.
So, the term "utility of investment" means nothing to you?
Highways; were already being produced privately.
Integrated circuits; were already being produced privately.
Networks; were already being produced privately.
Satellites; we'll never know since government slapped so many regulations on anything capable of pushing that amount of mass into orbit it. It's likely we would be making far greater use of space by now without the regulations and government interference.
Its always thae same old progressive arguement... Its for the greater good. I will grant you there is truly a role for governement, and they have (in the distant past) done some good things; but we jealosly guard our freedoms from an ever growing bureaocratic leviathan that slowly devours everything.
Its is a demonstrable fact that goverment is bloated and innefficent, it responds to the whims of its political masters that are motivated by the next election cycle not on what is necessarily best for the country.
Remember, taxation is basically theft; at the point of a gun no less. Why should we trust them to do the right thing when they have shown over and over that they are completly self serving?
"Doing God's Work."
-some twit from Goldman Sachs
"Trust me, I'm in advertising."
- Don Draper
"I promise."
- My kids
"I won't cum in your mouth."
- Anonymous
"You gotta be kidding me."
- He who has been guaranteed
"Good as Gold"
- Central Bank evaluation of fiat
"Nature of US citizenism is eternal" AdAnonymous
There was a chart in another post ( war pigs) detailing the breakdown of tax dollar with 41 pct going to the military industrial complex. Maybe you could check that... Also maybe you could check the FED balance sheet and tell me who the ones getting trillions of 0pct loans are... Thank you.. Looking forward to your smart inputs...
It is impossible to print wealth . Unfortunately printed money will purchase real assets .
Stuff Jefferson Said , pg 478 .
only for those that get it first (banks at the window)--after that the price is to high and another round of printing is in the offing
fff
A quint , well done .
That is what Keynes has ignored and one of the central tenants of Austrian economics and business cycle theory, cumulative misallocations of capital.
When money for loans has some connection to savings then capital misallocations are limited.
Keynes theories were really only about dealing with deflation and the subsequent lack of clearing of markets due to prices being sticky downwards.
Even Keynes would have thought our current view of keynesianism absurd, that generations of pump priming and pedal to the metal deficit spending have no consequence
Most people don't know that Keynesian Economics was "specifically" designed for Socialism.
"After Marx. Marx's work sharpened the existing differences between the revolutionary and non-revolutionary socialists.
Non-revolutionary socialists took inspiration from the work of John Stuart Mill, and later Keynesand the Keynesians, who provided theoretical justification for (potentially very extensive) state involvement in an existing market economy. According to the Keynesians, if the business cycle could be solved by national ownership of key industries and state direction of their investment, class antagonism would be effectively tamed; a compact would be formed between labour and the capitalists. There would be no need for revolution; instead Keynes looked to the eventual "euthenasia of the rentier" sometime in the far future."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_economics
"In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic. " Monetary Reform (1924) J. Keynes
Good dig! More specifically, he said his theories were best suited for a "totalitarian" state.
What you call the current view of Keynesianism is only the view held by people who don't understand Keynesianism. Generations of pump priming is Friedmanism / Greenspanism and pedal to the metal deficit spending for generations is Reaganism / W. Bushism. Yes, Obama inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit and is not shrinking it - but he isn't growing it either. Aside from a temporary and too small stimulus in 2009/2010 his policy response has been pure Milton Friedman. We haven't used Keynesianism in most of our lifetimes.
Delusional!!!
EuroVision 2012 winner's song is appropriately named EUTHORIA!
Talk about the Circus half of Bread and Circuses.
More properly reflective of EUthanasia
Are bonds capital? What a farce, Bankia being capitalized with Spain bonds in exchange for funding from ECB. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/27/us-spain-bankia-idUSBRE84Q0FB2...
We went from making money to MAKING money.
To be more precise than the article, what is necesary is a sound system of units of account.
The money does not have to be mined or extracted from the ground, but neither can it be inflated.
Gold acts as a good money because it cannot be arbitrarily inflated, but if you set up a gold standard and then locked the amount of 'dollars" in circulation to a fixed number, the gold itself would be entirely unnecessary.
See Bitcoins for salvation.
"Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce--oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice." -George Washington, 1787
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/constitution/1787/bowen.html
The entire Industrial Revolution was financed with "money out of thin air". That's the way it has been for more than 400 years in the Western World. There have been manias, depressions, monopolies, crashes, recoveries, thefts, wars fought, growth of national debts, etc. often with a supposed gold standard in effect. It hasn't been the goodness of the capital: it has been the wise or foolish use of the capital which has defined success, or failure.
I am fully of the opinion that our culture of fly now pay later, ez credit, live large, etc. is not the result of bad capital. It is the result of laziness, greed, and wishful thinking by several post war generations, throughout most of the western world.
but of course not corruption or abuse of power or fraud or friends of the "court" --- just saying
Gold backed money or what you have today - it's still a lot easier, and usually more profitable, to gamble on something then make a real product in competition with China.
THX1178 Get out of our face and don't come back till you have educated yourself. You can start here:
http://mises.org/
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/nouveaux-statists-party-on-...
so back to the primis-- gov't is a sleasy whore with one hand on your cock and the other in your wallet-but the gov't is people so then gov't persons-( public sector union types, politicos, lobby buddys. grant contractors, enforcers etc.) are sleasy whores with one hand on your cock and the other in your wallet-----fixed it for yo"bro"---print that buck by the truck load
America isn't broke. We would be running long-term budget surpluses if we could bend the healthcare cost curve down to what it is in Western Europe. That's not the sign of a country that is broke - that's the sign of a country with a broken healthcare system.
Have some more Kool Aid!!
America is beyond broke!!
Just don't count the fact that your Hero Comrade Obama has pursued the IDENTICAL policies of George W.
Lets ignore the 16 TRILLION in national debt and the 50 Trillion in unfunded promises just at the federal level.
Try not to worry your simple little mind about the broke state pension systems and medicare.
Dont worry that 10,000 people a DAY are retireing and signing up for benifits while the labor participation rate is the lowest as a percentage of population since who knows when!
But no, lets add another entitlement and steal more hard earned money (at gunpoint) to pay for Obamacare! All the efficency of the DMV with the compassion of the IRS!!
Your either simple or intentionally deluded.
"A SOUND money allows for the reliable calculation of profit or loss in any enterprise"
perhaps.
sound money must first and foremost reflect distribution of wealth.
in doing so, all, including us simple folk, will be able to judge the fairness of a given economic system.
look at distribution of wealth. make a judgement as to how that suits your own context. then act.
nothing is more fairly representable.
all that carries a value unto itself, beyond being the mechanism that facilitates exchange, is not money, but a derivative. pm's are of such.
that is, of course, theory.
history shows pm's to be in a thought of their own.
but remember this. it's just a thought.
more fun than thought is action.
Aretha FRANKLIN "That Lucky Old Sun"
The process of creating "money" (actually, debt) out of thin air is simply one form of "consequences shifting" practiced by the predators-that-be and predator-class.
It is a simple, unavoidable fact of reality that actions have consequences, so "consequences shifting" is simply the way predators misdirect the bad consequences of predator actions onto producers, and misdirect the good consequences of producer actions onto predators.