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Atlas Shrugged

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    #452
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #453
    Valmont
    Registered Users Posts: 5,856 ✭✭✭Valmont


    robindch wrote: »
    The bit between the first page and the last of "Atlas Shrugged".
    This is why you're unable to debate outside of your own forum.


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    #454
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    I'm quite serious in what I say - Rand's cockaninny economic views are expounded not in the form of a concise, succinct economic theory published in the academic, peer-reviewed literature, but in the form of a massive book, popular amongst a very small portion of the population.

    If you're aware of any economic papers by Rand which were peer-reviewed and published in high impact-factor economic journals, then I'd certainly like to hear of them.


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    #455
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    How is this any different than saying the market failed ? And if I am wrong please excuse my ignorance .


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    #456
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #457
    KahBoom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 282 ✭✭KahBoom


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    None of that persons work has ever been peer-reviewed for faults/errors (something a review board of professional economists or related experts would have to do - not forum posters), they are just 'working papers', so can safely discard their work as 'low credibility' - try again with a peer reviewed study.


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    #458
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #459
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Look will you forget about 'the left' it is really irrelevant in this discussion , it seems to be your bogeyman for everything.

    All you are saying above is that the market failed to understand that house prices can not rise forever - is that correct ?


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    #460
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    As I've said, as far as I'm concerned her entire output is sophistic - open whatever book you have to hand, move forwards to the first lecture on economics, and there you go - that's the sophistic prose you're looking for. If you're not happy to do this yourself, I'll go back to her "Anthem" piece and find something there.

    For my part, I'd like to see her notions boiled down until they're clear and succinct and admit of a single, unambiguous meaning. Ideally, notions which have passed peer review and have been published in a high-impact factor journal and not in length stretches of airport novels.


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    #461
    KahBoom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 282 ✭✭KahBoom


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    This is contradictory - the risk calculations are effectively a part of the model.

    The bad risk calculations are one of the primary parts of the reason why the whole lot is viewed as being so dangerous: The greater the complexity and thus obfuscation/lack-of-clarity in the models, the more you can hide risk and achieve greater leverage/profits in the short term, at the long term cost of potentially tanking entire industries or economies, if the use of financial instruments based on the risk miscalculation, becomes widespread enough.


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    #462
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #463
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #464
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #465
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,993 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Interest rates are set by the entity which is licensed to issue the base credit. In the EU this is the ECB whose policies are controlled by EU finance ministers, and whose prime directive is to maintain inflation at or below 2%.
    In the USA it is the federal reserve, which is a privately owned banking entity.

    Who do you propose should manipulate base interest rates?
    I am distinguishing now between setting the base rate of notional "fiat" money created out of thin air, not asset backed real money.

    The problem with CDO's and other "imaginative" financial instruments is that they deliberately mix and obfuscate those debts that are backed by real collateral and those that are not. Those that will be paid, and those that may not.
    Debt and credit are two sides of the same coin, but not all credit/debt is real. Some debt is imaginary pie in the sky debt and some is real collateralised debt. The same goes for credit; the bank or state issuing money/credit may not have the assets to back up their promises.

    So with the CDO, the financial wizards gave their new device a fancy name which conveyed a false meaning which is actually the opposite to its real meaning and function; Collateralised Debt Obligation.


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    #466
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Well, I can't blame you avoiding her leaden prose :)

    So, as I promised, here's an example from her "Anthem" text. The scene is that a street-sweeper has invented the electric lightbulb. He's presenting this to the "Home of the Scholars" and the following exchange ensues:
    Ayn Rand wrote:
    "How dared you, gutter cleaner," spoke Fraternity 9-3452, "to hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the one and not of the many?"
    "You shall be burned at the stake," said Democracy 4-6998.
    [...]
    "Should it be what they claim of it," said Harmony 9-2642, "then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The Candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one."
    "This would wreck the Plans of the World Council," said Unanimity 2-9913, "and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon."
    "And if this should lighten the toil of men," said Similarity 5-0306, "then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men."
    Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.
    "This thing," they said, "must be destroyed."
    etc, etc, etc.
    Now, I can understand why somebody of Rand's background would have a problem with collectivism -- why else would she abandon Russia -- but is this really supposed to be a serious criticism of collective activity?

    This sophistry reads more like something written by a petulant 14-year old and cannot, in any sense, be taken seriously despite it apparently being one of the central plot themes.


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    #467
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #468
    KahBoom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 282 ✭✭KahBoom


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    My argument has nothing to do with how easy it is for a layman to understand complex financial instruments: It's purely about how complexity/obfuscation within the financial instruments, can lead or be used to miscalculate or hide the real amount of risk.

    I've provided a link to an article based on peer-reviewed studies earlier, showing that the risk models used with these securities, do lead to a problem there.


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    #469
    Valmont
    Registered Users Posts: 5,856 ✭✭✭Valmont


    Robindch, I don't particularly like Anthem either, but there isn't any 'sophistry' in that selection of text.


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    #470
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #471
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #472
    marienbad
    Registered Users Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    are these 'people' not the market ?


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    #473
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #474
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Valmont wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Yes, there is. Quite apart from the poor prose style, it's the presumably-intentional straw-manning of collectivism. Fifty years to approve the design of a candle -- is that comment supposed to be serious, and should it be taken seriously, even if it is?
    Permabear wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.
    Soviet planning, which, for example, produced the first workable nuclear bomb around four years after the US did theirs? And which also put a man into orbit before the US, put the first woman into space, and delivered the N1 Rocket Engine which, thirty-odd years after its development in the SU, was still more advanced than anything the US had developed up to that point?
    Permabear wrote: »
    But this is your evidence of Rand "abusing words and ideas"? :confused:
    I could go on producing prose and ideas from just about any of Rand's output, but I'm sure you'd declare yourself unhappy at every one. Nonetheless, I've produced the sophistry you asked for.

    Any sign yet of that paper by Rand which was peer-reviewed and published in a high impact factor economic journal?


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    #475
    KahBoom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 282 ✭✭KahBoom


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    You're hair-splitting now over the words I use (complexity/obfuscation), rather than actually addressing my argument - in order to try and divert the debate into lawyering over semantics.

    I've explained my point multiple times now, and provided an article based on peer-reviewed studies, showing the problems with the risk modelling, that contributes to miscalculating risk with these financial instruments - which is more than enough to prove my point.


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    #476
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #477
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #478
    coffee_cake
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,309 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    robindch wrote: »
    Yes, there is. Quite apart from the poor prose style, it's the presumably-intentional straw-manning of collectivism.

    One which she didn't come up with but used Bastiat's...

    a bit like the equivalent of russell's teapot, if you ask me


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    #479
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,403 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    I'm not "extolling the virtues of Soviet central planning" since much of it it was built upon an unconscionable heap of human bones.

    I am, however, just finished blowing a hole the size of Siberia in your central -- false -- allegation that "bureaucratic central planning" was either slow to react or was unable to come up with the good when it puts it mind to. And that Rand's juvenile characterization of it was, therefore, totally inaccurate.

    Any sign of that peer-reviewed paper by Rand that appeared in a high impact factor economic journal?


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    #480
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    Valmont wrote: »
    Karl, you're getting desperate now:

    And this is what's know as psychological projection.

    You didn't even read the report you cited and when I took points from that very report that showed you to be wrong you try to back-pedal.

    Embarrassing.


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    #481
    Karl Stein
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,689 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    robindch wrote: »
    I am, however, just finished blowing a hole the size of Siberia in your central -- false -- allegation that "bureaucratic central planning" was either slow to react or was unable to come up with the good when it puts it mind to.

    Sure isn't it what made America 'great' and sowed the seeds of US/Western Capitalism's golden age in the post WWII period.

    There isn't a country on earth that doesn't employ central planning to one degree or another.


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