Kate87

When someone says that a pension fund is underfunded by $1 trillion they got that number by doing a net present value calculation which uses a discount rate to discount future cashflows. Usually this rate is the risk free rate, ie the rate paid on government bonds. With this being unusually low right now, this gives pension liabilities 100 years in the future undue significance for today's shortfall figure. In other words, the shortfall is probably much less than $1 trillion. Even if interest rates never rise, and so pension liabilities continue to be discounted lightly, $25 billion a year really isn't much in the context of the US economy. It means either cutting services slightly, raising taxes slightly, or reneging on pension promises to local government workers slightly eg making them work longer before collecting the pension, etc. None of these things are welcome, but they certainly do not mean that the USA is akin to Greece, which is the point that Krugman is making.

softwareNerd, I agree, the chink is whether there is a gun culture or not. For example if you are Jewish and in Nazi Germany which is obsessed with the military, it would be a social disaster to ban Jewish gun ownership. Or if you are black and in the US in the 18th century under slavery, it was a social disaster for blacks to be banned from having guns. What unites these two examples is that guns are already heavily in the equation because there is a gun culture. Destroy the gun culture, and destroy the gun problem. Can someone tell me why the UK which does not have a gun culture should make it legal for people to own guns, when even the police do not carry guns? It must sound radical for an American to hear of the police not carrying guns, but this is the result of not having a gun culture: a more peaceful society.

Yes knives are stabby, that's why they are also illegal to own and carry. Do you see a massive problem of switchblade violence in the US or the UK where these items are banned? No. I am glad that knives are banned as well as guns. If I were to carry a knife for self defence it is more likely that I will be stabbed (http://safe.met.police.uk/knife_crime_and_gun_crime/get_the_facts.html). Yes there are infinite ways to kill me, but with gun and knife bans those two methods are removed. So America bans knives but not guns. Why? Because there is an irrational cultural fetishism of guns but not with knives. You say I view guns as an unnatural object - you are right - I do view them this way because they are designed to end human life with no other purpose. Only law enforcement and military people should have access to such technology. I agree that a gun ban in the presence of a gun culture will be less effective. The UK has never had a gun crime problem to speak of and so its obvious that lifting the ban would increase the availability of guns to criminals and increase deaths. With America's irrational gun culture however, a ban may be ineffective because in the short term, only law abiding citizens would hand guns in to the police. So you have to begin by destroying the gun culture. This is what killed Treyvon Martin. Guns may be an equlizer, and I would love to have a gun if I was about to be attacked. But to make it legal for citizens to own guns is a recipe for social disaster. Like with knives, if you own a gun you are more likely to be shot: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html

Of course I would rather have a pistol than mace to face an attacker with. But that's not the point. The problem with anyone being allowed to own and carry a point and click death machine, is that you give the power to end your life to any and every stranger. I would rather other people did not have that power over me. And please don't say that criminals would still have guns if you banned them. If you properly enforced the ban (like in the UK), there would be no guns for criminals either. Finally, yes, other forms of killing may rise if you banned guns (eg knife crime) but knives are not point and click. Again, I don't want another person to have the power to extinguish my life with a click of a button. PS - I agree with you that Tadmjones's analysis is right, but only in the context of guns being unquestionably legal to own. Whoever initiated the force goes to jail yes, but if there is no way for the struggle to become lethal at the click of a button, both parties walk away alive and that makes all the difference. Even if one is severely beaten, they have more chance of living than against a death machine. The death machine, ie the legality of gun ownership, is the issue here. Yet the main issue gets completely wiped out by America's irrational gun fetish (perpetrated by the politcal right) and irrational race fetish (perpetrated by the political left). The debate is so far from being rational that it has become a farce like much of America's political debate.

What I think is sad is how this whole thing has been hijacked by the issue of race. The REAL issue is that it was legal for Zimmerman to carry a gun (ie a point and click death machine) for self defence purposes.

Any philosophy can be turned into an evil one. Look at Christians who took Jesus's message of non-violence and spread it via force during the Crusades. Imagine a future Objectivist society which decided all non-laissez faire capitalist societies were a threat and so launches aggressive wars to purge social democracy from the world. I only know one Muslim, and he definitely rejects terrorism and jihad etc. To say that he is in any way guilty for the act of others, or that he somehow enables them is ridiculous. That would be like saying Objectivists should take responsibility for the acts of the Tea Party because they both believe in small government. This would be ridiculous, Objectivism is different than the Tea Party just as moderate Islam is different from extreme Islam.

Christianity, whether you like it or not, has at its roots the supreme good (God) sacrificing his supreme value (his Son [simultaneously himself]) for evil undeserving sinners. This is one of the best examples of "unreasonable indiscriminate self sacrifice" I can think of. What's more is that a Christian is supposed to follow this example in an effort to be, and to become like Jesus. This is totally incompatible with Objectivism. Your personal beliefs on this matter are irrelevant. You've taken a lot of words there to make a trivial point: that people disagree on their metaphysical beliefs and even the meaning of words. This doesn't change any facts of reality, namely that Christianity means one thing (faith, self sacrifice) and Objectivism another (reason, selfishness), and that the two ARE incompatible. A person's opinion on this is irrelevant. I can hear your response before you even say it. That this is just my opinion. My response to that would be "that is just your opinion". And so we meet an infinite loop of opinions where truth becomes unknowable because all opinions are valid. No! Moralist's opinion is certainly not valid, and is certainly irrational for the reasons given above. PS. This debate reminds me of when religious people say that atheism is itself a religion, and that atheists have "just as much faith". This inspires in me just as much of a *FACEPALM* as Moralist's viewpoints. Words have meanings people!

Great post. Why? In your answer I do not want to hear any flights of fancy on how Christianity isn't about faith and self sacrifice. Words have meanings. If your version of Christianity is all about reason and selfishness then don't call it Christianity.

Based on what? Why don't you believe in the "secularist interpretation"? The answer is that you decide what Christianity means based on your own whims. You have already pre-decided (as another faith position) that you are going to find compatibilities between Christianity and Objectivism, and so you strain to highlight the vaguest similarity.Therefore you have abandoned reason, because Christianity does in what mean something very specific; your whims are irrelevant to it's meaning. Even if you were to be proved right that the two philosophies do have a harmony, your method is all wrong and so people will ignore you. Drop the method of pre-deciding things based on faith. This is your fundamental error. Imagine if someone announced that the Earth is spherical and that an Elf told them it was. This person's claim about the nature of the Earth would happen to be correct, but his method is wrong and so he is a laughing-stock. The same with you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21319945 As an atheist, I think these people are an embarrassment. Watch the video at the bottom. What do you think?

A lot of new wealth stems from government research (eg DARPAnet defence spending leading to the Internet) or government stem cell research leading to new medical techniques. There would be less of this kind of research under pure capitalism, since the returns are so uncertain. Also wealth does not have to be physical. For example who could argue that the human race is not better off due to the pictures taken by the Hubble telescope? However, most government spending goes on things like welfare. I doubt that Krugman thinks that this kind of spending creates wealth. I certainly don't. Sorry no. Krugman does not believe this. It's "common sense" on the same level that complex organs like an eye must have been designed is "common sense". It sounds reasonable but in fact is completely wrong-headed. The reason you guys are making such mistakes about Krugman is that you are assuming he is a mirror image of yourself. You believe in 100% free markets so you think that he believes in 100% government. No. No. No. Government spending can only create wealth when the economy is in a liquidity trap. Why not try learning about what Keynesians actually think, and what the liquidity trap actually is before you attempt to argue against it?

Someone in the centre of the political spectrum. In my case, someone who believes in a mixed economy, and is socially liberal. So I guess I would be on the centre left, especially in America.

I agree with you that capitalism and Christianity as working ideologies can exist together in a free society. This is a boring and trivial topic as such. For example fascism and Objectivism can also operate as working ideologies, but only if the fascists persuade themselves that key parts of fascism doesn't mean what it says. Similarly, Christianity could only work in a free society if Christian's perform mental acrobatics and convince themselves that Jesus didn't mean what he said. This is because, among other things, Objectivism advocates justice whereas Christianity advocates forgiveness and loving your enemies. On a functional basis, for example on deciding foreign policy, there would be a clash between these ideologies. So the real question becomes, how can people perform such mental acrobatics!? How can a Christian read Jesus speaking against an "eye for an eye" and then go and vote to keep the death penalty? PS. For the record I would describe myself as a political centrist, not an Objectivist or capitalist.

Since this is a topic about faith, you may be tempted to think you are allowed to say any of your opinions and they will be valid. I don't think this will fly here however. If words mean anything, then Jesus IS advocating non resistance of evil. Here is more: Love your enemies!? Do good to them which hate you?! These are evil words according to Objectivism. How do you refuse to see this? PS. I am taking from your silence on the issue of gay marriage and abortion rights, that you would vote to ban both.

I think the odds favour Moralist supporting abortion restrictions and banning gay marriage, only he can confirm this of course.

Jesus advocated the non-resistance of evil. Of course you will come up with excuses and different interpretations, and reasons why this is taken out of context etc. But here it is anyway in black and white, as clear as the day: Since you like Atlas Shrugged, I put it to you that this quote is the embodiment of Rearden's philosophy pre-Galt. It is literally a self destructive philosophy and more likely to be held by someone on the political left, especially by someone who advocates pacifism.

If interest rates start to rise, that will be as a policy response to higher inflation. Higher inflation will erode the value of the debt. This is most likely to coincide with a recovery in economic growth rates which will also shrink debt levels as a % of GDP. NB - Krugman has just posted about an example of a high debt country with it's own currency - France in the 1920s. - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/moveable-feast-macroeconomics/

Here it is from Jesus's mouth: If a person earns more than $34,000 per year he is in the world's richest 1% (http://money.cnn.com...chest/index.htm). That means it is very unlikely that people in the West are going to heaven (given a literal contextless reading of this passage). So people in the West choose Number 2 from my menu in the previous post. They choose to feel guilty and ask for forgiveness for not living up to Christ's ideal. Because Christianity also says that works are not the way to heaven. I put it to you that this kind of guilt and forgiveness begging is the destruction of a person's soul according to Objectivism.

When conditions change, QE will be fully reversed by the Fed if necessary. They would do this by selling their government bonds and deleting the proceeds. Fair enough. By definition bond prices have risen from QE because that’s what the Fed does with the proceeds, it buys bonds. It could also be causing rising stock prices, but neither stocks nor bonds should be included in any measure of consumer prices. You keep repeating this, who is claiming economic actions have no consequences? Obviously I am aware that economics is not a science. But you are mistaken if you think it cannot make testable predictions. For example, nearly 100% of economists agree with the idea of “comparative advantage” (http://en.wikipedia....ative_advantage). If this theory is right then the gains of free trade for all countries both rich and poor are enormous. In reality, we do in fact see that countries who open their markets do better than protectionist countries. Economists can see this by conducting econometric analysis (basically statistical analysis) to tease out cause and effect. Now statistics have all the usual qualifications, but to say they can say nothing about reality is absurd. I leave you with a brilliant quote about comparative advantage. From Wikipedia:

One thing is for certain on an individual's level, a person cannot simultaneously hold the ideals of Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ without massive cognitive dissonance. You SHOULD have a problem with your beliefs Moralist because they clash. As far as I see it a person who believes in Christianity can take two attitudes. Number 1 is to sell all of your possessions and give them to the poor like Christ advocated. Number 2, is to not do this self sacrificial task and instead damn yourself for your failing to do it, for not being altruistic enough. Number 1 is the destruction of your body, and number 2 is the destruction of your soul. Neither are compatible with Objectivism.

Indeed printing money when a country is not in a liquidity trap can be disastrous. The US is in a liquidity trap however, so printing money is not inflationary.

I'm not going to respond in detail since the crux of your knowledge of economics consists of a series of right-wing conspiracies. Since you are determined to be personal though, I am curious, your profile lists you as a Christian. How does your cognitive dissonance square this with Objectivism?

I have taken 200 level macro economics courses years ago. This included studying Keynesian, Neoclassical, and even some Austrian models. That's what's important here; having a model that is empirically testable against reality. If this is your focus (and it should be) it is not hard to see which models have held up well during the past few years. You are allowed your own opinions, but not your own facts. No, no, no!! The way to handle personal finances (or business finances) is exactly like you would advocate ie a balanced budget! Applying this to a country during a liquidity trap is disastrous. The difference here arises because a country is not a company - http://www.afi.es/EO/Paul%20Krugman%20A%20country%20is%20not%20a%20company.pdf from Harvard Business Review. That really is a classic article, and its worth reading so that every time you hear someone comparing an economy to a household/business you know their analysis is likely to be poor.

Are you saying that no one in the UK or USA has the right to vote because the constitutions are not sufficiently limiting of the votes power?

First I do not support an expansion of welfare transfer payments especially not in England. When I said charity above, I meant charity. But on a separate point I also think that someone's receipt of welfare should also not impinge on their right to vote. Otherwise this would be pragmatism - i.e. the denial of the vote to people who you disagree with. Once such a precedent is set, you could deny people who receive welfare the right to free speech by making it illegal for them to speak in favour of increasing welfare. Moralist replied to my post about pragmatism above, but I would like a better reply please that actually addresses the point of pragmatism. Can you elaborate on why voting is not a right and square your thoughts with the following statement from Ayn Rand (bold mine): According to Rand, there is a right to vote irrespective of the votes value. Also please note when answering, that today's system is not unlimited majority rule. Edit: I have scratched out the above, because I actually do not understand Rand on this issue at all. Can someone knowledgeable please explain, and let me know why you think her view isn't moral pragmatism.