Economics & Islam

Debates
1

I sent her this video link. Her response and my retort are below.

Any constructive criticism and advice welcome, especially more about the history of how America got out of the Great Depression. A conservative friend of mine informed of the argument of arms sales being a causal factor, but I am not 100% sure that he is correct.

OK. Got another one for you to check out too.

Daniel Hannan on Glenn Beck show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRb8Klq-DzY

Sister

Today at 7:55pm

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Listened to that last one. You should not watch Fox its bad journalism. Boom and bust economy is normal and spending the way out of the recession was how America got out of the great depression. Its what we have also done and its worked. You should study economics. The stuff they are saying about Islam is also incorrect. Islam is actually not growing it is just outwardly more conservative in its expression so more visable as a direct result of our foreign policy.

Me

Today at 8:09pm

How did I know you were going to say that. Yes, most of fox is bad journalism, but this program most certainly is not. Just like there are exceptions on any other news stations, none of which are unbiased.

Your history is also fuzzy as it was not ‘spending’ that got American out of the recession (although that was the political spin that was used to justify spending), it was generally sales of arms to mostly European allies and other countries that did. You can never spend your way out of debt, that is a ludicrous notion that got us into this mess in the first place.

The stuff they are saying is very correct about the rise of Islam, what they fail to talk about, because it was not the focal point of the discussion, is that the statistics cover all people who call themselves Muslims, many of which are integrated within western society, but a lot like man Christians and Jews, just call themselves that as they were born into it.

Gert Wilders accepts this fact as any rational person does, but that is not to say that proper ‘believing’ Muslims are not on the rise, they are. They are very politically active. Most recently they have managed to secure marriage and divorce courts within this country. It is a fascist, totalitarian doctrine that preaches subjugation of all, hatred for those who don’t submit and seeks world domination.

Also if you are interested in real sound economics, not the unlimited spending, generation of artificial credit, and fiat currency based Keynesian economics, check out Ludwig Von Mises, or in fact any sound Austrian School economist.

2

Why should boom and bust be “normal?” And why should a government-caused business cycle be ethical justification for further initiations of force and control?

3

I get the horrible thought whenever I talk to my sister these days that she is a hardcore pragmatist. Her argument is always, whatever the debate, “Well if it works, it works, its important that we do something”. I should not bother debating and casually simply ask Why and By what right, By what standard? That might be the best thing to do.

I hear “America’s Great Depression” by Murray Rothbard is pretty good.

LINK

Thanks for that.

4

Yeah, we got out of the Great Depression wonderfully. :dough:

5

You can borrow your way out of debt. Riiiggghhhttt…

6

Has anyone here read Manias, Panics and Crashes by Kindleberger? Just wondering what your take on his theory of credit expansion is.

The way it is laid out, credit expansion would happen regardless of money supply changes by gov’t. The lending of money expands in times of asset bubbles, as the recent trend in returns from increases in asset value becomes the dominant consideration (as opposed to expected return from future production of those assets). This increase in credit, whether it comes from banks using collateral asset values to justify lower fractional reserves, or from plain old investors trading their cash for CD’s, bonds and stocks, results in a self-supporting expansion of money, until the return from asset growth falls below the cost of credit, at which point a massive exit from the asset causes its value to plummet, leaving many investments (or bank accounts, in the casee of FRB) worthless, or at least greatly devalued.

Monetary expansion kicks in at this point to “save the credit system” and prevent an economic collapse, with the result of increases in the monetary base, and a blunting of the perceived risks of future asset bubbles.

It seems reasonable that even without government getting into the “lender of last resort” business, expansion of credit due to high short term returns on asset values would lead to occasional asset bubbles and consequent busts.

What am I missing?