Not true. Greed and corruption is the most evident in government.
and most rampant, as it has a monopoly over the use of force/coercion. At the very least, its equal. But this equal amount of corruption leads to worse outcomes because of the monopoly the State has.
Even indirectly? That restraints my property rights. I can no longer use my lake as I see fit. And as for my right to damage your property, what can you do about it?
Yes, you cannot damage my property. I can't shoot bags of garbage into the air out of a bazooka and then whatever property they land on just say I was using my property how I wanted. Free speech exists, but there's still laws against slander. You have a right to do what you want so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.
Already answered what can be done about before. See below too.
Pot calling the kettle IMO.
It is and it isn't that simple. The concept is that simple, the application is complex. Much like economics both is and isn't as simple as supply and demand. Of course I would first do a cost benefit analysis to killing your hitmen, and I might hire guys like me in Battlefield 3, who only succeed in getting their ass kicked. I may not need to hire hitmen, I may just need to dam my lake and your river goes away. Ultimately, when you pare down to the essential, it is that without a system I am required to comply with, the only restraint on me is how far I am willing to take it, and how far can I afford to take it.
As for political philosophers, they inhabit the world of academia. They are able to ensconce themselves in concept without ever needing to apply. They issue forth on anarchy while seeking tenure so they can't be fired. They exert their power on school presidents once they have it. An academic lives in unreality. I would weight the opinion of someone who experienced running a business in a variety of systems more than a philosopher.
Yes, even academics have to live in the real world haha Clearly, they need jobs and want to live the best life they can given whatever circumstances they find themselves in. To suggest that an academic is a hypocrite because the seek tenure doesn't hold any weight. Just because they make the best of the system that happens to exist right doesn't mean they support that system. I don't believe in social security, but if I'm forced to pay into it for years I'll at least try to get something back and take my check when it's time.
Which book? And what does it matter whether they were journalists or not? A journalist collects facts. Are you not interested in facts? Of course an economist would be in a better position to guess outcomes in economic affairs. Journalists are in a better position to record information, develop sources, and report those things in writing. That's why journalists seek out people involved in events and research those events. I seriously doubt an Austrian economist could do that, and I certainly wouldn't hold it against him.
An economist would be much better at collecting data and explaining why an economic collapse happened (even better is if they can do it before it happens! which is what the free market economists did). They actually have deep understandings of how those things work. I'll take an economists account on something over a journalists any day.
Pure speculation, with unsupportable assertions.
Lol well when you do the same thing that caused it in the first place (print money, monetize the debt, keep interest rates below market level, increase the amount of fractional reserve banking), it will obviously make it worse. Those assertions are 100% supportable. The Fed just announced today that interest rates are going to stay at 0 til 2014. That's insane. Obama wants 1.2T in more debt. The entitlements are getting out of control. Congress forms a "super-committee" to cut a microscopic amount of spending out of the proposed increases and they can't even agree to something. You can't keep borrowing money and printing it to pay it off and expect that money to keep its value. When dramatically increase the supply of X, X loses its value.
ridiculous.
How? Strong central governments have been tyrannical for thousands of years of history. Nations stard becoming wealthy when free enterprise is introduced and private property protected (from others and from the government).
According to your second sentence, it's utterly true. Assuming you are correct, that capitalism requires a system of laws, then laws would be a precondition before capitalism could exist. They would not be of capitalism. Man, there's so much in that little etc. Like dump what he chooses to in his own lake.
If society were to turn anarchic all of a sudden, laws would come about on a free market through the development of private courts/judges/arbitrators/inter-agency arbiter agreements.
Please provide a regulation to derivatives trading that existed prior to the current administration.
Central banking.
Example: A and B flip a coin. If A wins, he gets B's car. If B wins, he get's A's car. If both cars' value is about $10k, this bet created a $10k derivative that can now be added to the $600 trillion derivatives "market"
In the above scenario, the assumption is that both A and B each have (own) a car to transfer to the other when he loses the bet. Person C couldn't care less how the two cars are allocated between A and B. A problem arises when A and/or B don't actually have (own) enough assets to cover all potential loses if all their bets went against them -- like betting on 3 cars while each only owning one. Enter central banking, fractional reserve banking, and the implicit backing of governments "protecting the economy" and derivatives now allow both A and B to bet on much more than they own, and person C (taxpayer) becomes a sucker player in the A-B bet.
In a free market A and B should be able to voluntarily bet on anything they actually own, without affecting person C. Central banking, fractional reserve banking, and governments "protecting the economy" are the means by which A and B can bet on MORE than they own thereby inevitably involving the unsuspecting sucker C into their bet.
The Fed and Central banking which flooded the system with artificial money/credit all while claiming that they've reached a new era where modern macroeconomic/monetary policy has reduced the volatility of the business cycle (Bernanke's "Great Moderation") created false optimism about the likelihood of collapses/recessions. The inflation (both monetarily and psychological) caused the speculation and over-valuation of financial assets.
Our entire monetary and banking system wasn't/isn't a free market. We have central economic planners. Stop denying the facts. This is why Ron Paul voted against the repeal of the Glass Steagel Act. Not because he's for regulations, but because he knew that as long as the Federal Reserve is the lender of last resort and there are guarantees from FDIC, the risks and loses will be transferred to the taxpayer (moral hazard). That's right, the biggest proponent of free markets in the public eye voted against the repeal of Glass Steagel because of moral hazards that would be caused by government. That should tell you about whether or not we had free markets.
Derivatives didn't even exist when the Great Depression hit, and that was caused by the Federal Reserve and the Government.
Watch out, here's comes your petard. If fractional reserve banking is more profitable, why would banks choose the less profitable 100% reserve if there were no restraint on reserve holdings?
There would be restraint on reserve holdings! The restraint is that it is fraud/counterfeit. But today the government/central banking makes it legal. If I pay you money to keep my gold safe for me with the expectation that I can have access to that whenever I need/want it (on demand), but you loan 80% of it out to someone else not expecting me to ask for it, and then I ask for it and you don't have it, that's fraud. Not only would that be illegal, but under a free market banks that did that wouldn't get business.
Its no different if thousands of people give you their money to store for them and you can't meet those obligations were they to all ask for their money at the same time. Now I can give you my money to loan out in return for intereset if we voluntarily agree to that, but thats different that fractional reserving demand/checking deposits.
But the government/central bank provides allows banks to do that, both legally and by providing liquidity, ie artificial money. And when this happens, the supply of money (M1) is increased dramatically. The numbers are really absurd. Checking deposits have been like 50 times the actual cash reserves in the banks. I think in like in the last 11 years its been an increase of 70% of the total of the last 88 years before that.
It's a good thing that has nothing to do with why bubbles occur.
"
lmao. Did you read my post? I pretty much agreed with the above when I said that malinvestment still occurs even without central banks, BUT *the malinvestment doesn't occur occur on anywhere near the same scale such that it throws an entire nations economy into a deep recession.* Mild recessions are part of basic market corrections, and are not to be frowned upon. Deep recessions caused by central banks inflating the money supply are.
To say "nothing to do with why bubbles occur" is dumb. a) it creates bubbles that otherwise wouldn't have occurred, and b) it makes bubbles that would have occurred much much worse and thus the subsequent burst much much worse.
It's not silly to say that if you can't make me, I'm gonna keep doing it. That's as inevitable as death.
I'll try to lay out some basic arguments about why your argument about the need for a central government enforcer to lay down the law is ridiculously flawed as succinctly and as shortly as I can.
There's a lot more points to be made that I won't get into, but for you to dismiss it as totally nonviable is shallow-minded.
Regarding your argument that private protection agencies would constantly be clashing/warring with each other (my hit man is tougher than yours!).
a) This isn't true, but let's assume for sake of argument that it is true. Well, since there would be no overall State, no central or single local government, we would at least be spared the atrocities of inter-State (inter-central-government) wars. It's clear that the number of people killed in isolated neighborhood conflicts is absolutely nothing compared to the total mass destruction that has been caused by inter-government wars? Under anarchy with a multitude of private police/protection agencies, the only clashes that could break out would be local, and the weapons would be limited in scope and devastation. They could not use nuclear destruction, germ warfare, or other other forms of mass destruction since they would be blowing themselves and their property up too, as they are in the same geographic area.
It's the slicing off territorial areas into single government monopolies leads to mass destruction. When this happens, WMD's can be used, since it will be only "the enemy," the other country, that is hurt.
Moreover, when every person is the subject of a monopoly government, then in the eyes of every other government, those people very often become identified with their government. I'm associated with the US, so if China attacks the US, it will attack me and the other citizens as well as those directly part of the government. But if company A clashes with company B, the worst that would happen is that the customers of company A and B are dragged into the battle, but no one else.
So EVEN IF anarchy would lead to utter chaos, we would still be much better off then we are now where in the last 100 years we've had 2 world wars, hundreds of other clashes between nations, near genocide, and a cold war that conceivably could have resulted in humanity being wiped out entirely.
So even in an anarchic world, there's be no more WW's, no more Hiroshimas, etc. Far from Utopia, but much better than what centralized governments have gotten us.
*** Also think about this. We are living right now and always have lived in a world of international anarchy. That is, we have coercive nation States unchecked by any overall World Government. Do you advocate a WORLD GOVERNMENT?!?!?
b) The above was a hypothetical, as these police forces wouldn't clash anywhere near that much. Take the issue of honest clashes of opinion. One important facet of protection service the police could offer their customers is quiet protection. The vast majority of consumers would want protection that is efficient, quiet, and with minimal conflicts and disturbances, and all the police agencies would be aware of this consumer desire. For you to assume that police agencies would be in constant battle ignores the devastating effect this chaos would have on the business of the police agencies. Thus, on a free market, the consumers would choose police agencies that would minimize conflict through mutually agreed upon contracts, and differences of opinion would be worked out through previously mutually agreed upon private judges/arbiters. Police companies would advertise these agreements, and consumers would pay for the ones that have made these agreements.
c) note that many private businesses, with the money they would save on taxes/regulation costs and with the freedom to defend their property as they see fit instead of being forced to rely on State rules, would hire their own guards. Other businesses would do the same. Homeowners would have their own police agencies and these would often be located in close proximity to their homes as that would make them more effective, and the market would surely desire the most effective service. This system would make crime far less pervasive. How often would someone try to rob a grocery store when there are 3 armed guards in it?
Look who's being overly simplistic. Money they borrowed to fight the war was due and they didn't have it. They had two choices. Be able to levy taxes to pay debt, or default. I don't know where you're from, but it's pretty rare to owe someone lots of money and them say, 'nah, just pay me if you can whenever'.
They could have restructured the debt, and there's also many options that could have been taken that involved voluntary agreements rather than permanent centralization and taxation.
And, even IF (not saying they did) they needed a central government to pay for the war, that has nothing to do with the fact that a decentralized system is a better system. All it proves is that under certain circumstances, such as a previous need to fight against outside enemies, a centralized system can have advantages. And in a truly anarchic *world* there would never be wars against outside enemies, as I described above. (note that I never argued that this type of world has any chance of being achieved any time in the near future or even distant future, just that it would be the best system for society. In today's real world and in the US, I prefer a decentralized system where the government is restricted greatly by law and the central government's only role pretty much is to provide for the national defense. That can be achieved. )
Duh? Duh as in see, equilibrium has been reached in the cell phone market, complete with its regulations? Or duh as in, there's no difference between equilibrium and collusion?
Explain the collusion you referenced here.
That simple huh?
If I sell the same product as 10 other people at a higher price I will go out of business. If I sell the same product as 10 other people at a lower price but because of this I can't cover my costs, I will go out of business.
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