[XBoxBoy]

[quote=greekfire]@XBoxBoy: free markets would do a much better job of regulating themselves if they were allowed to fail. It’s the “too big too fail” bailouts and gov’t restrictions such as the Fair Housing Act that create a moral hazard.[/quote]

Well, I can certainly agree that moral hazard is an issue. But to me a much bigger issue is what’s to stop execs and others from looting their company? Or what’s to stop people like Madoff from running ponzi schemes? Or maybe more to the point, what’s to stop people from spending money to buy off politicians to then tax the population and give them the money? You can argue that “theoretically” the market will ultimately catch and punish these people. In practice I think these schemes often go on long enough that the culprits are never caught. (If it hadn’t been for the sudden stock market changes of 2008 ol’ Bernie would probably still be in business, not jail)

What I learned from the recent financial crisis is that there are a number of problems with “free markets” that just don’t self-regulate well at all. In theory they should, but in practice they don’t.
[quote=greekfire]It’s the people’s duty to act responsibly and respectfully towards one another.[/quote]

And so what do we do when they don’t? (Cause from the looks of things today, people definitely don’t) More regulations from the govt that is completely beholden to the crooks? Vote out the bums and vote in honest politicians? (If that’s your answer I got this bridge I’m trying to sell… could ya give me a call)

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=greekfire]@XBoxBoy: free markets would do a much better job of regulating themselves if they were allowed to fail. It’s the “too big too fail” bailouts and gov’t restrictions such as the Fair Housing Act that create a moral hazard.[/quote]

Well, I can certainly agree that moral hazard is an issue. But to me a much bigger issue is what’s to stop execs and others from looting their company? Or what’s to stop people like Madoff from running ponzi schemes? Or maybe more to the point, what’s to stop people from spending money to buy off politicians to then tax the population and give them the money? You can argue that “theoretically” the market will ultimately catch and punish these people. In practice I think these schemes often go on long enough that the culprits are never caught. (If it hadn’t been for the sudden stock market changes of 2008 ol’ Bernie would probably still be in business, not jail)

What I learned from the recent financial crisis is that there are a number of problems with “free markets” that just don’t self-regulate well at all. In theory they should, but in practice they don’t.
[quote=greekfire]It’s the people’s duty to act responsibly and respectfully towards one another.[/quote]

And so what do we do when they don’t? (Cause from the looks of things today, people definitely don’t) More regulations from the govt that is completely beholden to the crooks? Vote out the bums and vote in honest politicians? (If that’s your answer I got this bridge I’m trying to sell… could ya give me a call)

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=greekfire]@XBoxBoy: free markets would do a much better job of regulating themselves if they were allowed to fail. It’s the “too big too fail” bailouts and gov’t restrictions such as the Fair Housing Act that create a moral hazard.[/quote]

Well, I can certainly agree that moral hazard is an issue. But to me a much bigger issue is what’s to stop execs and others from looting their company? Or what’s to stop people like Madoff from running ponzi schemes? Or maybe more to the point, what’s to stop people from spending money to buy off politicians to then tax the population and give them the money? You can argue that “theoretically” the market will ultimately catch and punish these people. In practice I think these schemes often go on long enough that the culprits are never caught. (If it hadn’t been for the sudden stock market changes of 2008 ol’ Bernie would probably still be in business, not jail)

What I learned from the recent financial crisis is that there are a number of problems with “free markets” that just don’t self-regulate well at all. In theory they should, but in practice they don’t.
[quote=greekfire]It’s the people’s duty to act responsibly and respectfully towards one another.[/quote]

And so what do we do when they don’t? (Cause from the looks of things today, people definitely don’t) More regulations from the govt that is completely beholden to the crooks? Vote out the bums and vote in honest politicians? (If that’s your answer I got this bridge I’m trying to sell… could ya give me a call)

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=jpinpb]In a real free market, as a perfect example, the financial mess we’re in, the government would NOT intervene, certainly and especially to the extent it has. So imo, this is not to be considered a free market at all.[/quote]

But in real life, there is no such thing as a totally free market. (Well, I guess anarchy could be considered a free market, but somehow I don’t think that’s what most freemarketeers want) And I’m more than willing to agree the govt should not have intervened as they did in the current financial crisis. (And I think a really strong argument can be made that they way they intervened was “because undue influence by people who were giving big fat campaign contributions”, which is a nice euphemism for corruption)

But, assuming we’re gonna have some rules to our society, the question is who makes them, and who enforces them, and how do we keep things as efficient as possible? My argument is that the efficiency is overwhelmingly determined not by whether govt makes the rules or the free market makes the rules, but by how much corruption your system ends up having. And ultimately I don’t think that’s something that gets regulated, but is a social/cultural value that needs to be promoted by the people in the society. But hey, what do I know, I’m not a “social scientist”.

But I do want to stress that we need to be watchful of what the original poster is hinting at. That the answer to our problems is more regulation. He makes this argument by denouncing less regulation (what he’s calling libertarianism) and suggests since less regulation was a failure, clearly more regulation is better. While I agrain that less regulation didn’t work out very well, I’m not in agreement that more is better. Just because A is bad, doesn’t mean the opposite of A is good. The opposite of A could easily be even more bad than just A.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=jpinpb]In a real free market, as a perfect example, the financial mess we’re in, the government would NOT intervene, certainly and especially to the extent it has. So imo, this is not to be considered a free market at all.[/quote]

But in real life, there is no such thing as a totally free market. (Well, I guess anarchy could be considered a free market, but somehow I don’t think that’s what most freemarketeers want) And I’m more than willing to agree the govt should not have intervened as they did in the current financial crisis. (And I think a really strong argument can be made that they way they intervened was “because undue influence by people who were giving big fat campaign contributions”, which is a nice euphemism for corruption)

But, assuming we’re gonna have some rules to our society, the question is who makes them, and who enforces them, and how do we keep things as efficient as possible? My argument is that the efficiency is overwhelmingly determined not by whether govt makes the rules or the free market makes the rules, but by how much corruption your system ends up having. And ultimately I don’t think that’s something that gets regulated, but is a social/cultural value that needs to be promoted by the people in the society. But hey, what do I know, I’m not a “social scientist”.

But I do want to stress that we need to be watchful of what the original poster is hinting at. That the answer to our problems is more regulation. He makes this argument by denouncing less regulation (what he’s calling libertarianism) and suggests since less regulation was a failure, clearly more regulation is better. While I agrain that less regulation didn’t work out very well, I’m not in agreement that more is better. Just because A is bad, doesn’t mean the opposite of A is good. The opposite of A could easily be even more bad than just A.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=jpinpb]In a real free market, as a perfect example, the financial mess we’re in, the government would NOT intervene, certainly and especially to the extent it has. So imo, this is not to be considered a free market at all.[/quote]

But in real life, there is no such thing as a totally free market. (Well, I guess anarchy could be considered a free market, but somehow I don’t think that’s what most freemarketeers want) And I’m more than willing to agree the govt should not have intervened as they did in the current financial crisis. (And I think a really strong argument can be made that they way they intervened was “because undue influence by people who were giving big fat campaign contributions”, which is a nice euphemism for corruption)

But, assuming we’re gonna have some rules to our society, the question is who makes them, and who enforces them, and how do we keep things as efficient as possible? My argument is that the efficiency is overwhelmingly determined not by whether govt makes the rules or the free market makes the rules, but by how much corruption your system ends up having. And ultimately I don’t think that’s something that gets regulated, but is a social/cultural value that needs to be promoted by the people in the society. But hey, what do I know, I’m not a “social scientist”.

But I do want to stress that we need to be watchful of what the original poster is hinting at. That the answer to our problems is more regulation. He makes this argument by denouncing less regulation (what he’s calling libertarianism) and suggests since less regulation was a failure, clearly more regulation is better. While I agrain that less regulation didn’t work out very well, I’m not in agreement that more is better. Just because A is bad, doesn’t mean the opposite of A is good. The opposite of A could easily be even more bad than just A.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=jpinpb]In a real free market, as a perfect example, the financial mess we’re in, the government would NOT intervene, certainly and especially to the extent it has. So imo, this is not to be considered a free market at all.[/quote]

But in real life, there is no such thing as a totally free market. (Well, I guess anarchy could be considered a free market, but somehow I don’t think that’s what most freemarketeers want) And I’m more than willing to agree the govt should not have intervened as they did in the current financial crisis. (And I think a really strong argument can be made that they way they intervened was “because undue influence by people who were giving big fat campaign contributions”, which is a nice euphemism for corruption)

But, assuming we’re gonna have some rules to our society, the question is who makes them, and who enforces them, and how do we keep things as efficient as possible? My argument is that the efficiency is overwhelmingly determined not by whether govt makes the rules or the free market makes the rules, but by how much corruption your system ends up having. And ultimately I don’t think that’s something that gets regulated, but is a social/cultural value that needs to be promoted by the people in the society. But hey, what do I know, I’m not a “social scientist”.

But I do want to stress that we need to be watchful of what the original poster is hinting at. That the answer to our problems is more regulation. He makes this argument by denouncing less regulation (what he’s calling libertarianism) and suggests since less regulation was a failure, clearly more regulation is better. While I agrain that less regulation didn’t work out very well, I’m not in agreement that more is better. Just because A is bad, doesn’t mean the opposite of A is good. The opposite of A could easily be even more bad than just A.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=jpinpb]In a real free market, as a perfect example, the financial mess we’re in, the government would NOT intervene, certainly and especially to the extent it has. So imo, this is not to be considered a free market at all.[/quote]

But in real life, there is no such thing as a totally free market. (Well, I guess anarchy could be considered a free market, but somehow I don’t think that’s what most freemarketeers want) And I’m more than willing to agree the govt should not have intervened as they did in the current financial crisis. (And I think a really strong argument can be made that they way they intervened was “because undue influence by people who were giving big fat campaign contributions”, which is a nice euphemism for corruption)

But, assuming we’re gonna have some rules to our society, the question is who makes them, and who enforces them, and how do we keep things as efficient as possible? My argument is that the efficiency is overwhelmingly determined not by whether govt makes the rules or the free market makes the rules, but by how much corruption your system ends up having. And ultimately I don’t think that’s something that gets regulated, but is a social/cultural value that needs to be promoted by the people in the society. But hey, what do I know, I’m not a “social scientist”.

But I do want to stress that we need to be watchful of what the original poster is hinting at. That the answer to our problems is more regulation. He makes this argument by denouncing less regulation (what he’s calling libertarianism) and suggests since less regulation was a failure, clearly more regulation is better. While I agrain that less regulation didn’t work out very well, I’m not in agreement that more is better. Just because A is bad, doesn’t mean the opposite of A is good. The opposite of A could easily be even more bad than just A.

XBoxBoy

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=XBoxBoy]But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets.[/quote]

I suggest they are best regulated based on protecting people’s rights,[/quote]

But you’re still suggesting that regulation should come from the government? If so, how do you control the corruption of the government by interests that want to regulate based on what’s in their interests?

See, I don’t disagree that people’s rights are a good basis for devising regulation. But if the regulators are corrupt and beholden to special interests, they aren’t going to do what’s best for the general public. So, all the theory of what to base regulations on suddenly get real meaningless.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the only way to get back to decent regulation, (either by govt or by self regulation) is to convince people that corruption is crushing our economy.

[quote=sdduuuude]Take, for example, the housing market. All the regulation/bailouts are designed to “keep people in their homes” or to “prop-up the housing market” or to prevent banks from going under. Nothing is really focused on eliminating the fraud, particularly that by the ratings agencies who defrauded millions of buyers of “AAA” rated securities.
Regulating to outcomes instead of regulating to protect rights is killing this country.[/quote]

I think we’re really saying the same thing, only I’m calling “regulating outcomes” as corruption. The outcomes they are trying to achieve via regulation are outcomes dictated by those who spent the most money on campaign contributions. To me that’s corruption, plain and simple.

Which leads to these questions: If we can’t clean the corruption from the government, what’s the point in looking to them to regulate things? Why would a corrupt government follow your advice to regulate based on people’s rights when they are paid to regulate based on the interests of the people paying them?

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=XBoxBoy]But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets.[/quote]

I suggest they are best regulated based on protecting people’s rights,[/quote]

But you’re still suggesting that regulation should come from the government? If so, how do you control the corruption of the government by interests that want to regulate based on what’s in their interests?

See, I don’t disagree that people’s rights are a good basis for devising regulation. But if the regulators are corrupt and beholden to special interests, they aren’t going to do what’s best for the general public. So, all the theory of what to base regulations on suddenly get real meaningless.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the only way to get back to decent regulation, (either by govt or by self regulation) is to convince people that corruption is crushing our economy.

[quote=sdduuuude]Take, for example, the housing market. All the regulation/bailouts are designed to “keep people in their homes” or to “prop-up the housing market” or to prevent banks from going under. Nothing is really focused on eliminating the fraud, particularly that by the ratings agencies who defrauded millions of buyers of “AAA” rated securities.
Regulating to outcomes instead of regulating to protect rights is killing this country.[/quote]

I think we’re really saying the same thing, only I’m calling “regulating outcomes” as corruption. The outcomes they are trying to achieve via regulation are outcomes dictated by those who spent the most money on campaign contributions. To me that’s corruption, plain and simple.

Which leads to these questions: If we can’t clean the corruption from the government, what’s the point in looking to them to regulate things? Why would a corrupt government follow your advice to regulate based on people’s rights when they are paid to regulate based on the interests of the people paying them?

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=XBoxBoy]But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets.[/quote]

I suggest they are best regulated based on protecting people’s rights,[/quote]

But you’re still suggesting that regulation should come from the government? If so, how do you control the corruption of the government by interests that want to regulate based on what’s in their interests?

See, I don’t disagree that people’s rights are a good basis for devising regulation. But if the regulators are corrupt and beholden to special interests, they aren’t going to do what’s best for the general public. So, all the theory of what to base regulations on suddenly get real meaningless.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the only way to get back to decent regulation, (either by govt or by self regulation) is to convince people that corruption is crushing our economy.

[quote=sdduuuude]Take, for example, the housing market. All the regulation/bailouts are designed to “keep people in their homes” or to “prop-up the housing market” or to prevent banks from going under. Nothing is really focused on eliminating the fraud, particularly that by the ratings agencies who defrauded millions of buyers of “AAA” rated securities.
Regulating to outcomes instead of regulating to protect rights is killing this country.[/quote]

I think we’re really saying the same thing, only I’m calling “regulating outcomes” as corruption. The outcomes they are trying to achieve via regulation are outcomes dictated by those who spent the most money on campaign contributions. To me that’s corruption, plain and simple.

Which leads to these questions: If we can’t clean the corruption from the government, what’s the point in looking to them to regulate things? Why would a corrupt government follow your advice to regulate based on people’s rights when they are paid to regulate based on the interests of the people paying them?

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=XBoxBoy]But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets.[/quote]

I suggest they are best regulated based on protecting people’s rights,[/quote]

But you’re still suggesting that regulation should come from the government? If so, how do you control the corruption of the government by interests that want to regulate based on what’s in their interests?

See, I don’t disagree that people’s rights are a good basis for devising regulation. But if the regulators are corrupt and beholden to special interests, they aren’t going to do what’s best for the general public. So, all the theory of what to base regulations on suddenly get real meaningless.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the only way to get back to decent regulation, (either by govt or by self regulation) is to convince people that corruption is crushing our economy.

[quote=sdduuuude]Take, for example, the housing market. All the regulation/bailouts are designed to “keep people in their homes” or to “prop-up the housing market” or to prevent banks from going under. Nothing is really focused on eliminating the fraud, particularly that by the ratings agencies who defrauded millions of buyers of “AAA” rated securities.
Regulating to outcomes instead of regulating to protect rights is killing this country.[/quote]

I think we’re really saying the same thing, only I’m calling “regulating outcomes” as corruption. The outcomes they are trying to achieve via regulation are outcomes dictated by those who spent the most money on campaign contributions. To me that’s corruption, plain and simple.

Which leads to these questions: If we can’t clean the corruption from the government, what’s the point in looking to them to regulate things? Why would a corrupt government follow your advice to regulate based on people’s rights when they are paid to regulate based on the interests of the people paying them?

[XBoxBoy]

[quote=sdduuuude][quote=XBoxBoy]But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets.[/quote]

I suggest they are best regulated based on protecting people’s rights,[/quote]

But you’re still suggesting that regulation should come from the government? If so, how do you control the corruption of the government by interests that want to regulate based on what’s in their interests?

See, I don’t disagree that people’s rights are a good basis for devising regulation. But if the regulators are corrupt and beholden to special interests, they aren’t going to do what’s best for the general public. So, all the theory of what to base regulations on suddenly get real meaningless.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I think the only way to get back to decent regulation, (either by govt or by self regulation) is to convince people that corruption is crushing our economy.

[quote=sdduuuude]Take, for example, the housing market. All the regulation/bailouts are designed to “keep people in their homes” or to “prop-up the housing market” or to prevent banks from going under. Nothing is really focused on eliminating the fraud, particularly that by the ratings agencies who defrauded millions of buyers of “AAA” rated securities.
Regulating to outcomes instead of regulating to protect rights is killing this country.[/quote]

I think we’re really saying the same thing, only I’m calling “regulating outcomes” as corruption. The outcomes they are trying to achieve via regulation are outcomes dictated by those who spent the most money on campaign contributions. To me that’s corruption, plain and simple.

Which leads to these questions: If we can’t clean the corruption from the government, what’s the point in looking to them to regulate things? Why would a corrupt government follow your advice to regulate based on people’s rights when they are paid to regulate based on the interests of the people paying them?

[XBoxBoy]

You know, I’m half reluctant to even post to this thread because I agree that this is gonna degenerate into partisan name calling, and Bush is gonna be called a libertarian, and somehow libertarianism is gonna be blamed for everything wrong. But I’m gonna take a stab at trying to contribute a meaningful constructive post, and hope that my comments don’t just get sprayed with polemic tripe from the bleachers.

I would have to admit that I have thought of myself as basically libertarian for a number of years. I’ve been very anti-government, and largely in favor of free markets and allowing people as much freedom as possible. I find the ideology of this very attractive.

However in the last year I’ve come to seriously question this. At this point I think it’s pretty safe to say that deregulation of various industries, particularly financial industries, has been a full blown disaster.

While free markets sound great, clearly in practice they suffer from issues. Some of these issues we admit to and try to address, (like monopolies and bank runs) and others we ignore or deny. (like greed getting out of hand, looting of companies, fraud, corruption, and theft)

But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets. From my perspective the govt is not capable of doing so. (Witness the financial reform efforts, and all the totally captured regulators)

Which leads me to my biggest issue. In the past, the argument has been big govt vs free markets. But I suspect that this is not what determines our success or failure as a society. What does determine our success is the amount of corruption vs responsible behavior. While I’m no economics expert, and I’m not sure where to find the data, I’m of the opinion that there are economies that do surprisingly well despite large govts. (I’m thinking Sweden, maybe Norway, etc) They are successful because despite large govt sectors their corruption isn’t that high. Whereas other economies with large govt sectors often have massive corruption, and so they are disasters.

So, I suggest to you piggs, that the issue really isn’t libertarism vs socialism, or republicans vs democrats, it’s how do we convince people in our society that it really is important that they fight corruption and act responsibly? If we have free markets, and everyone participates in these markets fairly and honestly, not ripping off others prosperity will flow. Likewise, I’ve come to the conclusion that having socialism is fine too, provided we can convince those in the govt to be responsible, not corrupt and to play fair. But both of those last two sentences point out the problem. How do you convince people to play fair? I wish I had a clue, but sadly I don’t. Guess that explains why I’m pessimistic about our collective future.

XBoxBox

[XBoxBoy]

You know, I’m half reluctant to even post to this thread because I agree that this is gonna degenerate into partisan name calling, and Bush is gonna be called a libertarian, and somehow libertarianism is gonna be blamed for everything wrong. But I’m gonna take a stab at trying to contribute a meaningful constructive post, and hope that my comments don’t just get sprayed with polemic tripe from the bleachers.

I would have to admit that I have thought of myself as basically libertarian for a number of years. I’ve been very anti-government, and largely in favor of free markets and allowing people as much freedom as possible. I find the ideology of this very attractive.

However in the last year I’ve come to seriously question this. At this point I think it’s pretty safe to say that deregulation of various industries, particularly financial industries, has been a full blown disaster.

While free markets sound great, clearly in practice they suffer from issues. Some of these issues we admit to and try to address, (like monopolies and bank runs) and others we ignore or deny. (like greed getting out of hand, looting of companies, fraud, corruption, and theft)

But while I’m losing my taste for libertarianism, I’m totally baffled as to how to best regulate markets. From my perspective the govt is not capable of doing so. (Witness the financial reform efforts, and all the totally captured regulators)

Which leads me to my biggest issue. In the past, the argument has been big govt vs free markets. But I suspect that this is not what determines our success or failure as a society. What does determine our success is the amount of corruption vs responsible behavior. While I’m no economics expert, and I’m not sure where to find the data, I’m of the opinion that there are economies that do surprisingly well despite large govts. (I’m thinking Sweden, maybe Norway, etc) They are successful because despite large govt sectors their corruption isn’t that high. Whereas other economies with large govt sectors often have massive corruption, and so they are disasters.

So, I suggest to you piggs, that the issue really isn’t libertarism vs socialism, or republicans vs democrats, it’s how do we convince people in our society that it really is important that they fight corruption and act responsibly? If we have free markets, and everyone participates in these markets fairly and honestly, not ripping off others prosperity will flow. Likewise, I’ve come to the conclusion that having socialism is fine too, provided we can convince those in the govt to be responsible, not corrupt and to play fair. But both of those last two sentences point out the problem. How do you convince people to play fair? I wish I had a clue, but sadly I don’t. Guess that explains why I’m pessimistic about our collective future.

XBoxBox

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