Obsticles to Recovery: Marxism and Keynesianism

[hopi watcher]

I disagree. Our problems were caused by extremely loose monetary policy and low interest rates.



Define exploitation.



My dislike of trade unions stems from the fact that they often keep wages above market clearing levels and lobby governments to keep out competition, thus creating unemployment. This is bad, especially in a recession.

I have no problem with voluntary unionism.



Define collective.

Are you telling us that you cannot define the words 'exploitation' and 'collective'? Why do I get the feeling that you want to spend a while meandering in and out of what words mean or don't mean.
There is nothing complicated about what caused our present situation-greed and the greedy being allowed to do as they wished. Essentially, exploit all those that they could exploit.

[20000miles]

The funniest thing about this whole free market madness is the cognitive dissonance involved; ultra free marketeer Bernanke, who actually had the gall to apologise for the policies of FDR during the depression, is head of the much-reviled-by-free-marketeers Fed, following directly in the footsteps of his buddy Greenspan.

I mean can nobody else see the humour in that.

Meh, this is getting pretty tiresome. The "ultra free marketer" Bernanke heads a government institution that has failed comprehensively in its aims. The inflationary policies of Strong and Greenspan caused the 1929 and 2008 recessions respectively, and under the auspices of the Fed the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power.

I might add that Greenspan apologised on behalf of the Fed for allegedly not doing enough (ie. not inflating enough) and causing the great depression.

It would have been great if he had apologised for the policies of Roosevelt (and Hoover), after all they managed to prevent the liquidation of malinvestments, keep prices and wages from falling to their clearing levels, and they both hampered recovery by gutting the private sector.

But what do you expect from government workers...par for the course really.

[20000miles]

Are you telling us that you cannot define the words 'exploitation' and 'collective'? Why do I get the feeling that you want to spend a while meandering in and out of what words mean or don't mean.
There is nothing complicated about what caused our present situation-greed and the greedy being allowed to do as they wished. Essentially, exploit all those that they could exploit.

No I can't. Does exploitation mean "take advantage of by threat, force and violence". Or does it mean to "make use of ones abilities". I'm fine with the latter but not the former.

Is a "collective" a society characterised by volutary exchange, or is it an organisation where some members use violence against others (like in a State). Here I support the former not the latter.

[hopi watcher]

No I can't. Does exploitation mean "take advantage of by threat, force and violence". Or does it mean to "make use of ones abilities". I'm fine with the latter but not the former.

Is a "collective" a society characterised by volutary exchange, or is it an organisation where some members use violence against others (like in a State). Here I support the former not the latter.

As I feared, around the garden we go. Whatever has violence to do with anything? Exploitation in this context is one person taking unfair advantage of another and a collective is the state in which we are. The need for strict regulation is because the collective presents opportunities for exploitation by those minded to so do. We are a captive audiance. And again the cause of our present state of ruin, as was the Wall Street crash, was greed and the greedy being allowed to exploit others. It ain't rocket science and no amount of jargon laden waffle will alter that fact

[20000miles]

As I feared, around the garden we go. Whatever has violence to do with anything? Exploitation in this context is one person taking unfair advantage of another and a collective is the state in which we are. The need for strict regulation is because the collective presents opportunities for exploitation by those minded to so do. We are a captive audiance. And again the cause of our present state of ruin, as was the Wall Street crash, was greed and the greedy being allowed to exploit others. It ain't rocket science and no amount of jargon laden waffle will alter that fact

And again, we have the loose definitions. What makes one act of taking advantage "unfair" and another "fair"?

I'll just clarify what I'm saying. I acknowledge that humans are social creatures that have many gifts to share with one another. We create groups and engage in the division of labour to better meet our individual ends. That's great.

I oppose initiating force, theft and fraud in human affairs.

As such I must oppose any regulations in human affairs that are not consistent with private property rights, which are by definition initiations of violence against innocents.

And as I said above, this and the 1929 recession were caused by the inflationist policies of the Federal Reserve.

[Irish Liberty Forum]

hopi is not a great man for defining the words he uses... I imagine you will lose interest in debating him pretty soon, much as I did.

[hopi watcher]

And as I said above, this and the 1929 recession were caused by the inflationist policies of the Federal Reserve.

I am amazed that you are claiming that that you cannot follow the discussion unless key words are defined. The context is all you need to do that.

Your assertion regarding the cause of the Crash is just plain wrong and this type of word play is often used by 'free marketeers' to muddy the waters.
One of the contributing factors to the Wall Street crash was the Agricultural Recession which was caused by the imbalance of supply and demand which was due to a large extent on better technology. Government intervention would have controlled the flight from the sector. This imbalance entered the general market place due to gross inequity of wealth distribution. On top of this enetered the snakeoil sellers pretending that people could make money out of nothing. Buy stocks and get rich. The problem was that stock prices became divorced from the real potential earnings of the share prices. Prices were being driven by the optimistic exuberance of investors which was fuelled by the failure of government to intervene and put proper regulation in place. In a word-Greed combined with small government

[20000miles]

Ouch! Nice burn, ILF.

[hopi watcher]

Ouch! Nice burn, ILF.

Are you guys children by any chance?

[20000miles]

I am amazed that you are claiming that that you cannot follow the discussion unless key words are defined. The context is all you need to that.

Your assertion regarding the cause of the Crash is just plain wrong and this type of word play is often used by 'free marketeers' to muddy the waters.
One of the contributing facters to the Wall Street crash was the Agricultural Recession which was caused by the imbalance of supply and demand which was due to a large extent on better technology. Government intervention would have controlled the flight from the sector. This imbalance entered the general market place due to gross inequity of wealth distribution. On top of this enetered the snakeoil sellers pretending that people could make money out of nothing. Buy stocks and get rich. The problem was that stock prices became divorced from the real potential earnings of the share prices. Prices were being driven by the optimism exuberance of investors which was fuelled by the failure of government to intervene and put proper regulation in place. In a word-Greed.

No, the Federal Reserve engaged in an orgy of inflation. Between 1921 and 1929 the money supply grew by 66%. The main cause of this was the Fed's purchases of US Government Securities, Bills Bought and New Discounts.

The Fed's role was also to facilitate industrial policy:

“The primary purpose of the Federal Reserve Act was to alter and strengthen our banking system that the enlarged credit resources demanded by the needs of business and agricultural enterprises will come almost automatically into existence and at rates of interest low enough to stimulate, protect and prosper all kinds of legitimate business” [Rothbard quoting Treasury secretary McAdoo]

This expansion led to a boom, particularly in capital goods industries. This is shown by the massive stock bubble of the time and the huge increases in wages of the workers in these industries.
This expansion caused a misallocation of resources, and evetually the boom had to turn to bust when the inflation stopped coming. Classic Austrian boom and bust.