And nobody, literally nobody, had mentioned anything about Hayek until you brought him up in your reply to me.
The first paragraph I wrote to ThacOman contained this:
“I could have replied to any number of lunatic assertions I've seen here, the main gist of which would seem to be that this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in if only de-regulated free market fundamentalism had been given free rein. To all the Friedman-worshippers, please remove your heads from your backsides and look around. Friedman's disciples have led the world to an economic catastrophe.”
As you can see I was drawing more people than ThacOman into my argument, people like MortgageBroker, Atlantic, and Retrolives. They were arguing that the Irish economy was in tatters because there hadn’t been enough de-regulation of financial services because of the inherent socialism of the Irish state, and I was countering on the basis that mainstream capitalists, with their unshakeable belief in the wonders of the free-markets, had driven the global financial system to a state of near-collapse. Their blind faith is inextricably linked to the work of Friedman.
Your approach to my argument was to state that we couldn’t blame Hayek, because his approach to paper money was opposed to that of Friedman. A bit like an anti-socialist pillorying Lenin, only to be told that he shouldn’t attack Mao.
Absolute rubbish. A lie. Go back over the thread and give me the examples of how the “majority of people defending the free markets were espousing the views of Hayek and not Milton Friedman”.
Here’s a couple of examples of the espousal of Friedman by your buddies here: “I’ll talk Friedman”, “even Friedman himself”. Not only that, we had a general attack on the “socialist” policies of the Socialist Republic of Ireland, with the lunatic assertions by your mate Atlantic that the government comes out at election time peddling “socialist claptrap”, generating an “envy frenzy”, and then “taxing the sh1te out of us”.
And what did you have to say to these obviously lunatic assertions:
I’m glad you’ve nailed your colours so firmly to his mast, because the assertions that the coalitions of
FF and PDs were peddling “socialist claptrap” is as laughable as suggesting that the Irish, of all people, were having the “sh1te taxed out of us”.
I suppose, given that you believe in economic theories the truth of which is “arrived at by contemplation”, that our position, in reality, at the bottom of the table of developed nations with regard to our being taxed by government, can be conveniently overlooked while you “contemplate” our struggle under the socialist yoke.
Let me remind you who introduced Hayek into this thread, it was none other than you, and it was after I posted my first thread, in reply to which you brought up the diversion from my attack on mainstream free-marketeers. I note your tendency to mock others i.e. “HAHAHA” in quite a few of your snotty retorts. You’ve been found out for the bullsh1tter you are here.
The money supply in this country has nothing whatsoever to do with our government, the one which you and your buddies would have us believe runs a high-taxation socialist welfare state. In case you haven’t heard, the ECB is in charge, and Ireland has one of the lowest tax regimes.
Given your mendacious account of the flow of the argument here, as illuminated earlier, I’ll not be taking any lessons from you on reading and understanding anything.
Ah, now you’re getting it. It’s ECB money, not the Socialist Republic of Ireland’s money. It’s a strange kind of socialism though, money being printed by people who have absolutely no input into our tax system or our social welfare spending. Pretty non-centralised for a “socialist” entity eh?
It’s interesting how dogmatic you are given that you believe in a gospel the truth of which “is arrived at by contemplation rather than through empirical research”. Your blind faith is touching. You’ll have to do better than “you are completely wrong, I do not believe this”.
I tend to scoff at irrational but passionately-held beliefs.
Capitalism is the world’s greatest confidence trick. It’s a con-job, literally. People, in response to invitations from vested interests, invest their money in enterprises they’re confident will give them an acceptable return on their investment. Pyramid schemes are the base example of this concept. This confidence trick was thrashed beyond the limits in the past decade, with deregulation of financial services providing numerous mechanisms into which vast sums of investment funds flowed. All great, until the confidence at the heart of the con-job evaporated. All we heard was a great big raspberry when the confidence roared out of the balloon.
I’m trying to argue on the subjects of Ireland’s alleged socialist nature, and the responsibility of the free-markets for their own implosion. You’re the one who’s avoiding that discussion, preferring an almost theological elaboration of why big, bad government gets in the way of everything from fairness to charity.
While not claiming any such monopoly, it’s pretty easy to argue that people of the right make a virtue out of mean-mindedness. Before you blow your top, as is your wont, let’s have a couple of example to back that up.
That’s in your post #88.
When Colada wrote “I like the term People before Profit, you wrote
Your alter ego 2000 Miles wrote:
So, clearly, you and your cohorts put profit before people, want to limit education to the better-off, and want to abolish the welfare state. Then you have the cheek to go on a deeply indignant rant about “how you loony-lefties claim to have the monopoly on goodness, morality and charity”. Again, the stench of hypocrisy is overpowering.
More lies. More misrepresentation. I have no problem, and you know it, with “private charitable acts, associations, donations, community-groups etc”. I do have a problem with your assertion that the safety-net of social welfare should be
replaced by charitable acts, presumably funded by well-off business types who’d never ever refer to “dole-scroungers” on “the scratch”. Your faith in a kind and generous capitalist utopia, with the rich digging deep to help the poor, is on a par with your faith in the gospels of an assortment of dead right-wing economic gurus. In other words, it beggars belief.
Your pal Mortgagebroker wrote:
“even friedman himself would admit that you do need a 'state' and that they have a roll to play, albeit a limited one, for instance - you do need to have judiciary who are not swayed by private bosses, you do need police etc”
How do you propose to fund the police and judiciary?
It’s interesting that to people like you agendas are the preserve of people of the left. The Chicago Boys didn’t operate to an agenda, did they? And of course you don’t have an agenda. You’re above all that, of course.
Your arrogance is impressive, though not surprising. “We were all discussing free-market money production”. Come back to me with the names that constitute the “all” in that assertion. There’s yourself, Hazlitt, and yourself, 2000 miles, and a few others. The fact that you ascribe wisdom exclusively to other rabid free-marketeers speaks volumes about your fanaticism.
Ooooh, dearie me. That’s put me in my place.
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Originally Posted by onlyasking
And nobody, literally nobody, had mentioned anything about Hayek until you brought him up in your reply to me.
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