Kate87

Right, for these purposes there are 2 methods of changing the law. Changing it by normal negotiation, ie give and take. Threatening a shutdown/default if you don't get your own way. The Republicans had their chance to defeat the ACA using method 1 and they failed because they didn't have enough votes. Number 2 is not acceptable and they will and should be punished for using it.

So in other words they are unwilling to pass a budget unless they get their own way. The same cannot be said of Obama because the ACA is already the law. What you are saying is true but trivial so why say it? Better to make a reasoned judgement than equivocation and stating the obvious. The time to block legislation is before it is made law. Once it is made law, to threaten to shutdown the government and to threaten to default if you don't get your own way is deeply irresponsible. The Republicans LOST as soon as the ACA became law. Threatening a shutdown and default after they have lost is ridiculous. As an aside, I do think most Americans see this and will punish the Republicans for it.

Imagine a Republican president had a package of tax cuts which were unfunded (for example George Bush Jnr). Now imagine if the Democrats in such a situation threatened to not pass a budget (and therefore shutdown the government) unless such tax cuts were removed. Whichever party decides to try to get their own way by shutting down the government (in this fictitious example the Democrats, and in actual reality the Republicans) is a complete disgrace. Who do you blame for the shutdown and why? To say that this is what a democracy does and voters will decide may be true but it is trivial. I think the logic of whoever refuses to pass a budget (unless they get their way) being to blame is perfect. Default is not inevitable. What usually happens in a mixed economy is that moderate inflation eats away at the real value of the debt. In this context what needs to be combined with this is modest tax rises and spending cuts that are agreed by both parties. Not one party demanding a spending cut or else they threaten to shutdown the government or worse default on the debt by not raising the ceiling.

Any rational person would blame the party who originally threatened a shutdown (Republicans) for that shutdown subsequently happening. Duh. It seems like a lot of Objectivists, like usual, appear to be Republicans. What is really tragic is that this is now affecting the possibility of a debt default. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the tea party loons (and unfortunately some Objectivists and other small govt people) would LOVE to see a debt default.

It appears that there is now a diplomatic solution on the table - Assad handing over his chemical weapons willingly. I hope this happens - chemical weapons are a threat to us all because by their nature they are indiscriminate. They target innocent children for example. Am I right in saying that some Objectivists think it is morally acceptable to do this in war?

You never addressed the issue at hand, namely Assad's use of chemical weapons. I agree with Yaron Brook's points, but he obviously doesn't mention chemical weapons because this is a recent event. Also, regime change isn't on the table. Obama is about to talk as I type this, but it's clear that military action would be limited to cruise missiles and no "boots on the ground". Here is a mild video of the gas attacks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2GPTqxf8rE If the use of these gas attacks goes unpunished, then their use will become more prevalent in the world, which weakens our security. This is the best argument imho for intervention in Syria.

I think this is persuasive. The more I read about this, the more I am changing my mind that it is in fact in the West's interest to punish Syria.

It looks like the US will soon attack Syria. The rationale is that Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people. Spectacularly, the UK Parliament has voted against intervention, and the French are with the USA. As a Brit, I can see why it is in our interest to support our ally. I can also see why it is in our interest to punish regimes which use indiscriminate killing weapons like the nerve gases they have used. The world is a less safe place for all of us if these chemical weapons are used without punishment. However I don't see why we should risk our blood and treasure to weaken Assad when a lot of the rebels are Al-Qaeda and could gain power and influence. What do you think? Is intervention in Syria justified?

Thanks everyone for your replies, they are very helpful.

If there was a perfect constitutional republic with perfect capitalism, wouldn't open immigration ruin it? This was a debate I was having the other day with someone and I would like to get your thoughts on it. I don't necessarily agree with this view, but I am finding it difficult to answer, so here it is in more detail: If you allow uneducated poor people into your country, these immigrants will have children. These children will be less educated, and poorer than the average person. These children will be citizens with voting rights. They are likely to support redistributionist policies and other economically statist policies. Now of course in a perfect republic, lots of these statist policies will be illegal. However this will not stop the great mass of poor immigrants from organising and presenting political pressure. The more people you let in, the greater this pressure will become, until eventually a constitutional amendment will be sought to allow *only a little* tax to fund some government programme. This is then the slippery slope which eventually leads to the welfare state we know and love today. This argument is not advocating banning immigration, because lots of immigrants have in demand skills and will not be poor and uneducated. Instead this argument is advocating immigration restrictions, perhaps an income test where anyone earning less than X amount cannot come to the country to live. You could argue that the above scenario is already happening in America today, with the Democrats enjoying support from immigrants in exchange for enacting statist policies. How would you respond to this argument and is the solution of an income test moral?

I've heard this phrase a lot over the past year. It's basically a way to inject identity politics into the conversation and shut someone up who has an opposing viewpoint. They will say the person making the pro-freedom argument is privileged ie white, wealthy, male, healthy, heterosexual, etc. Eg if the person is male and is arguing against gender quotas because of XYZ reason, then the other person will say "check your privilege". Which means, you are a male with privilege so you would think that, you cannot have a proper viewpoint because you are a privileged male, see it from the less privileged point of view ie the female view. Which is absurd (not all females will support gender quotas) and hasn't addressed the XYZ reason that the person gave. It's also absurd because it implies that only people with personal experience of an injustice can make valid comments on it. ie that only minorities can voice proper opinions on racism etc. In summary, this is a super irritating phrase.

Politically Mankiw supported Bush I believe, so I doubt he is a libertarian. Economically, he is a New Keynsian - here is a quote from Mankiw http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/economy/30view.html

Politics and economics are linked of course. It is fine to have a political bias, everyone does. It is fine to have a moral bias everyone does. If economics said that killing babies would boost GDP and had a model and empirical evidence to prove it, then that would be valid economics. I agree that it would not be moral and therefore no rational politics would enact this in reality. It remains a fact of reality that printing massive amounts of money does not always lead to massive price increases. Economics can give you the exact conditions under which printing money will not lead to inflation, and also the conditions in which it will. A lot of Austrians dispense with economics and instead of simply saying that "1. in my opinion printing money is morally wrong" they say "2. in my opinion printing money always leads to inflation". Statement 1 is a valid statement - you are allowed your moral opinions. Statement 2 is invalid, you are not allowed your own empirical facts.

A lot of the people on this forum and the economists listed above have decided their political conclusions first. They then use this to inform their economic theories. This is the wrong way to go about economics. Unfortunately this is how Austrian economics works and Objectivists hold Austrian economists like those above in high regard. The best way to do economics is to build a model of how the world works and test it against reality to see if it's accurate, and then to modify from there. Greg Mankiw fits this bill. However, some of the above are outright laughable. For example Schiff is still predicting hyperinflation - there seems to be nothing in reality that can convince him otherwise. Along with Mankiw, I would recommend Krugman (http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Paul-Krugman/dp/1429251638/) - even if your politics is in disagreement with his, his is the best book to learn about IS-LM analysis (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/is-lmentary/)which is a Keynesian theory. Any textbook which does not cover Keynesianism does not deserve to be called a textbook. Even if you dislike the political/moral implications of Keynesian theory (which is absolutely fine), it still enables you to predict what will happen in this reality where Keynesian policies are followed. This will allow you not to fall into errors such as predicting a stimulus package enacted during depressed demand and low interest rates will cause the collapse of America. Similarly, Monetarist economic theories will be covered in a good textbook. Again you may dislike the political and moral implications of interest rate cuts, but a good understanding of monetarism will allow you not to fall into the trap of predicting hyperinflation when the government cuts interest rates during a slump.

This seems to be a bad example as murderers are pretty uniquely immoral! This is PK's point - Detroit isn't some extreme morality tail to warn of the dangers that America faces. Markets move, car companies moved abroad, Detroit lost. No one is denying that there was bad management in Detroit's government but what does that have to do with the rest of America? NOTHING

With the exception of demographic decline, it is very difficult for a government to plan for decline. Rather every instinct of a politician is to stop the decline by improving the town. This is because people are generally optimists and also that people vote for positive outcomes. In an economy with freedom of movement of labour and in a fixed currency area, some towns WILL fail regardless of anything a politician does. This is an unremarkable fact. Honestly I do not know how to respond to your comments. There is a reason the UK has done better than Europe and one of the biggest contributors to its performance has been the devaluation in sterling. I would conservatively guess that 95% of economists would agree with this. A basic reading of any textbook will tell you that a 25% devaluation is a massive boost for exports. The downside was that inflation briefly hovered near 5% during the past few years, and this was caused by higher import prices, again caused by the sterling devaluation. OMG, again how to respond to this? I am not advocated the restriction of movement of labour. Did you read my post? Governments with free floating exchange rates don't "decide" to devalue. Rather, the market decides to devalue the currency. This is what happened with the UK with massive purchases of dollars during the financial crisis and massive sales of sterling. This kind of illustrates Austrian economists folly who have always predicted a dollar crisis, when in reality people purchased dollars on a massive scale during the crisis. The dollar still remains strong against a basket of currencies.

The UK was objectively and absolutely saved by having its own currency during the financial crisis. The pound dropped by 25% overnight from $2 per £1 to the current rate of $1.5 per £1. This effectively meant that UK exports were and are 25% cheaper overnight which was a massive boost.

Random objects? No I fear specific death machine objects. For example a kitchen knife is not a death machine even though it can kill. A handgun however is a death machine.

I don't know too much about Detroit, but I do know that declining cities are features of a currency union as are booming cities. They are inevitable if you have a unified currency (the US dollar) and free movement of labour (ie the USA). If you didn't have a unified currency (ie if Detriot had its own Detroit dollar) then Detroit's currency would devalue against the US dollar and the city would become competitive again. This is basically what has happened recently to the UK with its seperate currency from Europe. If you didn't have free movement of labour (ie if the USA banned Detroit workers from working in the rest of the USA in the same way as it bans Mexican workers from working in the USA), then Detroit's collapse would also be stemmed. This is akin to the situation in Europe, ie although their is freedom of movement of labour in theory, in practice language barriers prevent this. So this is akin to Greece - they will never totally collapse because Greek workers can't practically work in Germany or England. I don't mention all this to suggest that the USA should implement separate state currencies or labour restrictions! Rather to point out that declining cities and states are an expected feature of America's economy as are booming cities and states. So I think the moral panic and hand wringing over Detroit is ridiculous.

At least the guy at the end has some sense!

Nerf guns are one thing. But if you mean actual realistic looking toy guns then I think that fits my definition of gun culture: an irrational societal normalisation of portable death machines.

Fair enough. I think it's a fair quote to repeat though because it shows how a rational person not raised in a gun culture might weigh up the issue. The source is here - http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/guns.html I looked on the Ayn Rand Lexicon and found this - http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anti-concepts.html It gives the example of "polarisation" as an anti-concept. I have also been Googling and found "isolationism" and "extremism" listed as anti-concepts. I still don't get it though, each of those 3 words have specific definitions designed to convey information, not to obscure it. Polarisation - when a society divides into two political groups which are vehemently opposed to one another, with little in between. Isolationism - the view that a country should tend to its own affairs and not become entangled in international relations and foreign policy adventures. Extremism - the use of violence combined with a political viewpoint on the edges of a public debate. ie an extreme environmentalist would advocate violence against animal testing labs. Or an extremist Christian would advocate violence against abortion clinics. I can see how there may be problems with the above definitions eg you may argue that extremism doesn't always involve violence in which case it simply becomes a pejorative to use against someone you disagree with who is in the minority. However, I do think my definitions are workable and accurate. So I would define gun culture as an irrational societal normalisation of portable death machines. PS - apparently the term is also used non-pejoratively in the US by people who are against gun control - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_culture

Yes all those things you mention are also part of the gun culture. I am a Brit, and looking across the pond I don't see the freest country in the world. To me, Australia has more economic freedom than the US (http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) and more social freedoms (eg abortion, gay rights, less foreign policy adventures etc). Fashion guns trivialise point and click death machines. They make them look like toys too. In no circumstances would I want my children growing up in a culture which permits this. As a customer of Walmart, I do not want my purchases to help fund death. A certain percentage of the guns sold in Walmart will cause deaths (which is what they are designed to do), and I want no part in that. I do not want to live in a culture which permits groceries and death machines to be sold in the same building. PS. I am not an Objectivist, but even if I were, I would not support the right to bear arms. Instead I would support Ayn Rand's position: Note Rand directly contradicts you Harrison when you said earlier: When Rand speaks of "killing people at whim" this is the power I was referring to that guns give you. It is not transcendental, it is a result of a gun being an effective point and click death machine.

The gun culture includes: Thinking its cool to hunt animals with guns for sport and it being legal to do so. Having guns as fashion accessories - http://www.pinkgun.com/ and it being legal to sell these. It being proposed that school teachers be armed. Guns being for sale in Walmart. Being obsessed with the 2nd amendment which is out of date. Thinking its masculine to own a gun. Excessive guns in movies. Child guns being legal to sell - http://www.crickett.com It was this gun culture which killed Martin. Without a gun, Zimmerman wouldn't have had the false confidence to follow Martin leaving it to the police to do their job.

A pension shortfall is the NPV of future liabilities minus the NPV of future assets. From the paper Krugman linked to: So it seems that in the US you guys discount by the expected rate of return (in the UK we use the risk free rate as economists recommend which is what I assumed you guys did). So reading the paper further, the $3.8 trillion number is the gross liabilities, with $1 trillion being the net, when using an 8% discount rate. When using a 5% discount rate (which is still way way above the risk free rate! so still much too generous) those numbers shoot up to $5.5 trillion gross, $2.7 trillion net. So the situation is actually worse than Krugman reports, not better as I wrote above.