Econ 2009

[schickel]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

My Comment: Note that "Mr. Unfettered Free Market Capitalism" himself, Alan Greenspan, this week came out in favor of bank nationalization, at least on a "temporary" basis. Dear me, what would his erstwhile muse Ayn Rand think of that?

What is the world coming to? Just last Octoiber he also admitted that he was "in a state of shocked disbelief" when he "had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending."

Do you suppose there's any chance that the ardent free marketers might ever admit that maybe, just maybe, there could be a problem with too little regulation? Or is that too far out of their world view?

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by schickel

Do you suppose there's any chance that the ardent free marketers might ever admit that maybe, just maybe, there could be a problem with too little regulation? Or is that too far out of their world view?

I think you suffer from the following fallacy:

1. We must do something.
2. X is something.
3. Therefore we must do X.

The next time the guy at the airport takes away your 4 year old daughter's yoghurt according to regulation (if it's liquid it might be a bomb!), please remind yourself that it will be the same mechanism with which we'll get Mo' & Better (TM) regulation.

Do you really want more regulation theater?

It is extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly unlikely that regulation can prevent an economic crisis, will magically prevent companies from failing, and prevent people from doing stupid things, in general.

It is veeeeeeeeeeeeery likely that regulation costs a lot and keeps us from getting stuff done.

Regulations are good when they concern conventions, like the color of the traffic-light that's supposed to signal 'stop'. It is wishful thinking at it's worst to assume that regulations make a problem disappear.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Minimum wage will NOT make people earn more money. It will simply make everybody below the cut-off lose his job.

Why not set the minimum wage at $1.000.000? We're all millionaires!

The point against regulation is that the regulator cannot regulate properly for lack of omniscience.

There is also no mechanism in effect that will remove bad regulators. Bad companies are occasionally allowed to fail, but the worse regulations are working, the MORE resources they get.

The US is sending more troops to Afghanistan? More? I thought the biggest idiot to date had left the office. Is there some sort of stupidity contest going on?

The economic fallacy is that the regulators are trying recover sunk cost, which is impossible.

I have no idea where people get the idea from that Alan Greenspan supported free markets, when it was his job to set the price of debt (interest rate) on a daily basis! That's not how free markets & the price mechanism work, and that's why they're going to blow up again and again, until the government is bankrupt.

[davieddy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqxq6xqoXI

[KriZp]

Originally Posted by davieddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqxq6xqoXI

Originally Posted by youtube

This video is not available in your country.

What kind of cencorship is this?

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by KriZp

What kind of cencorship is this?

Dunno where you live.
But For your information the song was
"Sin City" by Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Bros,
and included the lyric "On the 31st floor, a gold-plated door
won't keep out the Lord's Burning Rain"

David

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by __HRB__

I think you suffer from the following fallacy:

1. We must do something.
2. X is something.
3. Therefore we must do X.

A) Will you please explain how your 1-2-3 applies to schickel's text that you quoted?

B) I'm not sure exactly how you intended "fallacy" in this context, but I note that your step 3 presumes another, unstated (and usually false) step:

2a. X is the only choice.

It is extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly unlikely that regulation can prevent an economic crisis, will magically prevent companies from failing, and prevent people from doing stupid things, in general.

Exaggeration doesn't help your argument.

One possible simple regulation could have required that sellers of CDSes and whatever-the-other-newfangled-type-was must disclose its risks, in plain English, to a potential customer. Then one of our local school boards would not have been fooled into buying what they were told was a safe-enough-for-a-school-board investment.

Simple information regulations _can_ prevent some people from doing some stupid things -- not always, but often.

It is veeeeeeeeeeeeery likely that regulation costs a lot and keeps us from getting stuff done.

Oh, yeah -- I guess printing a few extra sentences in boldface font on the front of derivative prospectuses would have cost a lot and would have scared some customers away, so yes, there's sometimes extra cost, and yes, sometimes a regulation informs someone that something is not in their best interest, which keeps some salesfolks from making extra sales -- yup.

Regulations are good when they concern conventions, like the color of the traffic-light that's supposed to signal 'stop'. It is wishful thinking at it's worst to assume that regulations make a problem disappear.

You seem determined to twist and exaggerate "maybe, just maybe, there could be a problem with too little regulation" into something ludicrous.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

So was the road to deregulation.

Minimum wage will NOT make people earn more money. It will simply make everybody below the cut-off lose his job.

Oh, that's right -- last time we had a minimum wage increase there was massive unemployment ... NOT.

Why not set the minimum wage at $1.000.000? We're all millionaires!

Why not exaggerate every reasonable suggestion into absurdity? We'll see that all proposed change is ridiculous!

The point against regulation is that the regulator cannot regulate properly for lack of omniscience.

Now, there's a smooth exaggeration-into-absurdity at the end. Very smooth.

There is also no mechanism in effect that will remove bad regulators.

Are all regulators appointed for life, exempt from all criminal and civil laws, and exempt from all investigation for misconduct? If so, I wasn't aware of that.

- - -

I've posted many times in other threads that what we need is a proper balance between the extremes of the Strict Father worldview of conservatives and the Nuturing Parent worldview of liberals. For achieving that, it would help to educate those near the extremes that people at the other end of the spectrum are fully human, too, and deserve to have their views thoughtfully considered without distortion, in order to achieve best results.

HRB,

Those who advocate deregulation have had an almost-30-year run, and succeeded in pushing the pendulum so far their way that the swing back will be awesome. I suggest that those opposed to the coming swing back take the role of reasonable negotiators to keep things from going too extreme on the other side, but not fool themselves that deregulation is always good.

[ewmayer]

I don't do online videos (especially not while at work), so could someone tell me if davieddy's linked video is even remotely related to the thread topic?

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I don't do online videos (especially not while at work), so could someone tell me if davieddy's linked video is even remotely related to the thread topic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqxq6xqoXI
You mean this one?
(Hope it's clean)

It's certainly related

[cheesehead]

Can someone provide a summary, for those of us who've not yet converted from dialup to broadband?

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Can someone provide a summary, for those of us who've not yet converted from dialup to broadband?

You're a good one to ask for a summary

Can't you get my links in the US?

I was hoping for better from Ernst.

David

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by davieddy

You're a good one to ask for a summary

Can't you get my links in the US?

I was hoping for better from Ernst.

David

If folks who posted video links would at least do the rest of us the small courtesy of adding a few words what the video is about, the click-bait skeptics among us might be , well, less click-bait-skeptical.

Posting links with zero contextual information is only one short step removed from spam - at least that's the way I treat 'em.