Sen Jeff Merkley, Democrat from Oregon, voted against another disastrous term for Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve. Six Republicans joined him. Twelve Democrats voted for him.
No doubt, Obama is pissed. Merkley will pay. Integrity is only a virtue in novels and movies.
Piece of Mindful 
Virtue suffers alongside integrity. Corruption is the new normal.
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“Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve”
And who do you think would be different?
They are all Keynesian and they all hold the same basic premise of banking – monopolization and cartel.
There may be subtle policy differences – but in the major things – they all wear the same smile (or grimace).
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Not the point – you’re right about that, of course. It’s that they have so much power that our representatives will not confront them, even when they fail.
I don’t presume to know that Keynes was wrong, but you presume to know that everything you know is right.
That’s the only thing about you, you know?
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Keynes is wrong because he even said so.
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Somehow … I think you’re overstating. Nonetheless, you don’t address the part about always being right. That sounds like youthful exuberance, which is why I think of you as being quite young.
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Hayek wrote a full refutation to a Keynes’ book “Treatise on Money”.
When Hayek asked Keynes for a rebuttal, Keynes said “Oh that book, I don’t believe in that anymore”.
I already answered why I am right.
I start with a solid premise and reason my arguments.
You can certainly debate my premise.
You cannot refute my reasoning.
I know it’s frustrating, especially when your premises are as faulty as your reasoning – but you’ll get over it, I’m sure.
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You are rather frustrating, the cockiness of youth and all. I’ll do it to you:
I surmise that if I build a better product than my neighbor, and that we both market them, that the market will respond by buying my product and not my neighbor’s.
Refute.
See what I mean? Lacking any detail or real-world input, the statement stands on its own as neither provable or disprovable. Not enough data.
That is your whole philosophy – it operates without real world inputs.
However, I do look around and see that people respond to their individual situations, and if they have power over someone else, exercise that power to the other person’s detriment. If the other person cannot stop the more powerful person, then that person has to submit. There is no choice.
Hence, slavery. Sweatshops. Price gouging by utilities and health insurance companies, agreements not to compete, divvying up market share. Bad stuff all.
I’ve actually seen this happen.
Whatever it is you talk about, I’ve never seen it happen.
You got nuthin’.
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As far as the FED Chairman…..
98% of all lettered economists are trained by Keynesians.
Academia almost exclusively teaches Keynesian economics. I know of only one school that teaches Austrian Economics, and it isn’t that big or that popular.
FED hires 1500 economists with degrees – all of them Keynesian.
So, from that field of Keynesian economists, who do you think they’ll pick?
I bet they’ll pick a Keynesian.
What do you think?
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I don’t care.
I doubt that anyone there is philosophically grounded in anything but “free market” ideology – that’s where Greenspan came from. He was a Randian. You might say yeah – but they did not practice it.
You’d be right. They know better. It leads to craziness.
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For those who think freedom is crazy, they willing fall into slavery.
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You do not understand freedom.
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Sir, from a man who denies it even exists, you r comment is meaningless.
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see below
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If you feel that, it is you – not me – that is the cause
As usual, you start with poor assumptions. It is little wonder why your solutions are faulty as well.
Not necessarily.
In any market, we witness a high variety of goods and services within a product range – a mix of price and quality catering to a broad range of customers.
In your opinion, for you you believe your product is better. But the real decider – the consumer – is the true judge.
You may be offering it at too high a price for the minor increase in quality. Or the functionality, though plenty, is too complex… or… etc.
That is what the Free Market is all about.
Subjective value in the eyes of the consumer.
The consumer is King.
A particular product solves a particular person’s problem. A different genre of the same product solves a different person’s problem their way.
When by edict government prevents a product from entering the market place, a skew happens. A set of consumers remain unsatisfied – they do not get their problem solved, they pay too much, or they are forced into an inferior product (for their needs/desires).
More than enough because the basic economic principles are economic law.
Your question as an analogy would be “I’m holding a pencil in the air, what happens if I let go”.
Yes, there are certain consequences that may be different if you’re holding it over a fire pit or a body of water – but the law of gravity still applies regardless.
A man discovers his Universe two ways.
By trial and error. The defect of this method is that you will not live long enough to survive every mistake.
By reasoning. The benefit of this method is it does not have the defect of trial and error.
We can understand our universe by using reasoning. We test that reasoning in the real world to see if it is valid.
So far, Austrian Economics has correctly described the causes and effects of government intrusion into a Market Place. I would, therefore, say it is probably a very good tool to describe other features and consequences of other actions as well.
What power do you have over me without violence? None.
You can stomp your feet, yell and scream, and demand to your hearts content. I walk away.
Situation change, adding: you are pointing a loaded gun at my head. I will have a significantly different response.
Power without Violence is merely influence. I can take it or leave it voluntarily.
Only if the powerful resort to violence or its threat. Otherwise, you have two feet. Walk away.
Threat of death and torture by violence creates slavery. Without that threat or actuality, do you believe the slave would remain a slave??
So you believe they should starve to death, rather than earn their living in a factory??
Utilities and Health Care are government cartels – their ability to act in this manner is due to the protection they are given by government.
Remove government out of the economy, and your complaint about these companies would essentially disappear.
Government touching anything turns it to “bad stuff”.
When the first answer to every problem is clubbing people over the head, it is nearly impossible to have a ‘nice solution’.
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Oh, markets exist. We do interact, and good things happen. I said extremist, and that is true, but you are also Utopian –
All things in moderation. If all we have is government, we have no wealth. If all we have is markets, we have no freedom.
Not sure you’re gonna grasp that.
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It is a bizarre statement to say free men acting voluntarily for their benefit gives them no freedom.
There appears to be an underlying misunderstanding, disbelief, contradiction, or conceptual failure for you to embed such contradictions.
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All right! Now we’re gettin’ somewhere. Embrace the contradiction, you Randian you! Then we got something to talk about.
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Fine sir,
Contradictions cannot exist in the Universe.
The human attempt to manifest a contradiction is the root of all man-made evil.
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I think you simply d not understand “freedom” because you do not see humans as social beings. You see us as islands, but isolation is not freedom. That is, what the song says, the state of having “nothing left to lose.”
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Sir,
Because humans are social beings changes nothing about freedom.
To example;
“You do not understanding ‘running about’ because you do not see humans as social beings”
Your statement regarding freedom makes as much sense as my example using ‘running’.
Freedom is a verb.
It is not a place.
It is not an object.
I do not see humans as islands – precisely the opposite. Humans ARE social.
We either deal with each other by force and violence
OR
we deal with each other voluntarily.
Pick one, Sir, for they are exclusive to each other.
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Governments come about voluntarily. You don’t get that, do you. We can’t do much without them. It’s like playing football without rules or referees.
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No government comes voluntarily.
You confuse merely the changing of the color of the paint as to be “different”.
The wall and form has never changed.
Government exists as a means to centralize, monopolize and control the use of violence.
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See bewlow
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Every country on the face of the earth, save one, have governments. They come about because we need rules and order and marketplaces. Your notion of freedom is skewed, your idea of what constitutes force and violence is as well.
You are an outlier, you know, standing virtually alone in your beliefs. Even libertarians concede the need for government. We only argue about how much. The idea of separating “government” from us is false dichotomy.
OK, I’m done here. Circle completed.
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“Even libertarians concede the need for government.”
Not quite true… There is a branch that doesn’t. You’re arguing with one above.
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Every country on the face of the earth, save one, have governments.
500 years ago, everyone in Europe had exactly one religion and leader.
Because it is, does not mean it has to be.
They come about because we need rules and order and marketplaces.
Government does not exist because we need rules or order or a marketplace.
Rules exists without government, by fact of observation.
Order exists without government, by fact of observation.
The market exists without government, by fact of observation.
Thus, your argument here is wholly refuted.
Your notion of freedom is skewed,
You see it skewed because you believe the word is a noun.
To you, this sentence would make sense:
“The man ‘Mark T.’ up the hill.”
your idea of what constitutes force and violence is as well.
Strange comment out of no where.
You are an outlier, you know, standing virtually alone in your beliefs.
That may true.
That does not make me wrong.
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Refuted, eh. Right.
No, being an outlier does not make you wrong. But in this case, I think that your presumptions of how it would be if it were not as it is are the Achilles Heel of your belief system. It is what it is, and now amount of theorizing makes it was you see it.
What you do is a bit like theology – intense study of something that does not exist.
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Sir,
If you’d note, I make NO presumptions of how it would be.
As Marx said “I built the kitchen, what meals are cooked there, I do not know”
The answers free men find to solve their problems are not mine to design or to discern.
All I know is that their answers will be infinitely better than government who by violence attempts to impose its own designs.
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