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Atlas Shrugged

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    #512
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,793 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    This is what I find strange about the "regulation bad" philosophy: it always seems to be explained that regulations are bad because business will work so hard to evade the regulations; therefore not regulating them in the first place is a better idea.

    Isn't that rather missing the point that, if a business is prepared to work so hard to avoid (say) maintaining adequate capital reserves when required to do so by a government, then the same business will work even harder at not maintaining adequate capital reserves if there's no such legal requirement?

    It's similar to the arguments against regulating pollution, which seem to revolve around the fact that, despite such regulation, pollution still happens, therefore regulations don't work - which ducks completely the question over whether companies that pollute in defiance of regulations will magically stop polluting if governments stop telling them not to.


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    #513
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Well, this thread is about Ayn Rand, as the thread title might suggest. And as I've repeatedly said, I've read enough of Rand to know how little her viewpoint is worth. If you're saying now that Rand doesn't actually represent the type of libertarianism that you hold true yourself, then I'd certainly be interested to know where you reckon Rand's own understanding concerning society was defective.
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Well, A+A is a discussion forum, so perhaps you might like to explain libertarianism in the light of your newly-acquired understanding of the basics?


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    #514
    diveout
    Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    I know people like that and they tend to be self centred, assuming the whole world is like them.

    Ah well when I was a child we had to walk 8 miles in bare feet in the pouring rain and I turned out ok.

    **** off.


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    #515
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #516
    diveout
    Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    Brian Shanahan wrote: »
    I honestly think that most libertarians are conditionally incapable of actually seeing the world outside their "companies good, government bad" prism, and this stems from the economic fantasies which underpin their whole ideology (I've outlined two major problems with one of the main "free market hypotheses", Efficient Market Hypothesis, which make it untenable as a valuable tool for real life situations, and these kinds of problems run right through the Austrian/Chicago schools unpon which all sorts of capitalist ideologies, including libertarianism, are based).

    The fact of the matter is that the current economic orthodoxy (of which libertarianism is simply a sub-set), is based off work which instead of trying to fit their ideas so that they replicate reality, they chop, stretch, distort, and invent realities in order that they fit their models and ideas. That is why so many proper scientists are indignant at economists trying to group themselves as scientists too, because much of economic theory is little more than magical thinking*. And because libertarians are so used to seeing the world so distorted in their economic treatises and publications, they are unfortunately unable to distinguish reality from the construct that was created in order to make it look like the theories upon which their system was founded were actually working theories.

    *Up to and including distorting the ideas of their "sacred" founding fathers, for example Adam Smith would be spinning in his grave if he knew any of the ideas attributed to him by the Adam Smith "Institute", a home for fifth rate intellectuals. Despite what they, and other free-marketeers he was in favour of , e.g. rent controls on private landlords (to stop the abuse of rent-seeking, which is making an income off something you've never put any work into), or the role of government in providing infrastructure such as roads, ports, and many other things that modern free-marketeers decry as the government "dead hand destroying the market".

    For every action you have an equal and opposite reaction which is why you are seeing libertarianism grow in popularity.

    "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957 when you had Eisenhower and Nixon in power. It's interesting to consider Eisenhower's expanses of New Deal policies in this context. It began imo with the expanse of government under Nixon and his alphabet soup, resurging again with the Clinton administration expanding government and bureaucracy even further and now it has reached an all time high level with Obama.

    If there weren't so many growing multiple arms of this jabba the hut style octupus you wouldn't see a reactionary movement like libertarianism. And it's good to have opposition in US politics.


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    #517
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    diveout wrote: »
    **** off.
    I'm going to be nice and assume that you wanted to put "hump" in there. Even still, that kind of comment isn't allowed here in A+A, so please take a little time out to read the forum charter before posting again.



    BTW, I hope I don't upset any libertarians by openly waging A+A's ongoing war upon innovative posting styles and entrepreneurial onehumpmanship.


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    #518
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #519
    diveout
    Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    robindch wrote: »
    I'm going to be nice and assume that you wanted to put "hump" in there. Even still, that kind of comment isn't allowed here in A+A, so please take a little time out to read the forum charter before posting again.



    BTW, I hope I don't upset any libertarians by openly waging A+A's ongoing war upon innovative posting styles and entrepreneurial onehumpmanship.

    Sorry, I hope you don't think I was saying that to the person I was responding to - Permabear. I was responding to the imaginary person I had in mind when I commented on self centred responses to other people's troubles.

    Oops. I didn't mean to be offensive. Apologies.


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    #520
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #521
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    At the risk of having to repeat myself ad meam nauseam, yes, I've read Rand. You might remember that I took her to pieces for you a day or two back?

    Anyhow, if you don't want to debate your libertarianism -- and I can certainly understand why you might want to avoid that in a place like A+A -- then, well, perhaps we can talk about something else?

    Any sign of that peer-reviewed paper on economics written by Rand that I asked for? I was hoping you might oblige after I went to the trouble of documenting for you, at some length, a fine example of Rand's silly sophistical prose.


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    #522
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #523
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    You can apply that logic to most industries , for instance Hollywoods opposition to sound,television,video,internet, It just means we have to try harder.

    By the way what happens when mortgage holders default on their payments or countries do an Argentina , what happens then ?


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    #524
    MrPudding
    Registered Users Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    But who frequently were... So what?


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    So, it is as I suspected, you are using the 'normal' definition of 'providing an incentive'. See, most people would consider the phrase 'providing an incentive' to mean someone was activley trying to encourage a specific behaviour, typically because that behaviour is advantagous or desirable in some way. How you are using the phrase actually means 'the regulations were preventing the banks from engaging in risky behaviour so they came up with an innovative way to bypass the regulations'. The regulation did not provide an incentive. The regulation but sensible restrictions in place to try to prevent the banks form engaging is overly risky behaviour, and the banks bypassed these regulations through 'innovation' thereby causing, or at the very leadt excacerbating the problem that the regulation were in place to prevent.

    When there are laws or regulations to prevent a particular behaviour that is not an incentive to find ways too bypass those laws or regulations.
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    But those capital controls were in place for a reason. Perhaps the banks should not have been trying to bypass them...?
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Only because the banks were too greedy to actually abide by the regulations, and by abide by the regulations I mean not try to find some way to circumvent them.

    I can't get a gun to murder someone because of the various laws and regulations that are in place. Does that mean that if I murder someone with a knife I can blame the government because it contributed to my murdering someone with a knife because by banning guns they created an incentive for me to murder with a knife?
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    it did not encourage that behaviour. it tried to prevent banks from breaching capital controls. That the banks chose to circumvent the regulation and do the very thing the regulation sought to prevent is not the fault of the regulators, that is ridiculous.


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Absolutely. At the same time, let's not poison the well.


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Were the banks not already profitable? Why can't we afford to rein them in?

    MrP


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    #525
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #526
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #527
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
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    Awwwww! As a fan of Rand's impressively overwrought prose, I thought you'd enjoy these little excesses!
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    No, I've simply been enjoying the sight of you posting that silly question time and again.[/quote]You don't really get "discussion", do you? :rolleyes:

    Still, at least you now admit that Rand never managed to get anything published in a reputable economic journal. There is a reason for this :)


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    #528
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #529
    diveout
    Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    robindch wrote: »
    Awwwww! As a fan of Rand's impressively overwrought prose, I thought you'd enjoy these little excesses!You don't really get "discussion", do you? :rolleyes:

    Still, at least you now admit that Rand never managed to get anything published in a reputable economic journal. There is a reason for this :)

    There could be many reasons for this.

    One being the vast majority of people don't read economic journals and a writer or political theorist might want to reach a wider range of readership.

    Secondly, economic journals are not too metaphor friendly. I doubt they would have published "Animal Farm" either.


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    #530
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #531
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    I've asked you a few times whether you'd like to discuss libertarianism, Rand and the rest, but instead, you choose to come out with silly lines like the above.

    I really have no idea why you're hanging around a discussion forum if all you want to do is avoid discussion.


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    #532
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    diveout wrote: »
    One being the vast majority of people don't read economic journals and a writer or political theorist might want to reach a wider range of readership.
    Nothing prevented her from trying both.

    The simpler reason, of course, is that she never managed -- or seemingly even attempted -- to get anything published because she knew that her theories would have been laughed out of any academic journal where there's more respect for facts and reason, than for her angsty, teenage populism.


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    #533
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #534
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #535
    diveout
    Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    robindch wrote: »
    Nothing prevented her from trying both.

    The simpler reason, of course, is that she never managed -- or seemingly even attempted -- to get anything published because she knew that her theories would have been laughed out of any academic journal where there's more respect for facts and reason, than for her angsty, teenage populism.

    We can't know what she knew or didn't know about publishing as we cannot hold a seance and ask her. This is pure speculation and ad hominem, speaking of respect for facts and reason.


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    #536
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #537
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    That is what currently happens ,I am asking what happens to the mortgage defaulters and Argentinas in your system ?


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    #538
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    As above, I'm trying to see if somebody who holds libertarian views will engage in debate, or even discussion. So far, both seem comfortably beyond you.
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    You're aware of the difference between a commercial publishing house and a peer-reviewed journal?

    I'm interested in the latter, not the former which -- I can't help but note - also publishes a range of other fiction too.


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    #539
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #540
    Valmont
    Registered Users Posts: 5,856 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Next you will be moaning about the paper Rand's publishers used.


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    #541
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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