• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

LA Times: Obama stimulus spending: $246,436 per new job

phattonez said:
Not everything fails though. You know this.
Click to expand...

Then why bring it up? The point was that panic leads to far more inefficient outcomes than anything you have offered up to this point.

Of what is legally required.
Click to expand...

Better read up on fractional reserve banking and what reserve ratios mean!
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Then why bring it up? The point was that panic leads to far more inefficient outcomes than anything you have offered up to this point.
Click to expand...

How is it inefficient? The best succeed and the worst fail. That's capitalism.

Better read up on fractional reserve banking and what reserve ratios mean!
Click to expand...

A 170% reserve ratio means that if everyone demands their savings right now that the bank will still have some extra money for themselves. You know that's not the case. It's 170% of the required reserves.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
And to think that you might not want to talk economics;) To my surprise (even though you are probably unaware), cross price elasticity arises! Must be a good time for bankruptcy attorneys; as demand has clearly shifted in their favor.
Click to expand...

Sure has, but so what? Everyone knows that won't last.
 
phattonez said:
How is it inefficient? The best succeed and the worst fail. That's capitalism.
Click to expand...

Doesn't mean it's not inefficient. We can have a more efficient version of capitalism.
 
phattonez said:
How is it inefficient? The best succeed and the worst fail. That's capitalism.
Click to expand...

Efficiency of market systems depends on competition to weed out the weak. Financial panics lead to heuristic herd behavior, which is neither efficient nor logical, hence the term animal spirits. The difference between a correction and a meltdown essentially depends on the level of market participants who are driven on fear. We know that the upward trend of asset values is very much real.

A 170% reserve ratio means that if everyone demands their savings right now that the bank will still have some extra money for themselves. You know that's not the case. It's 170% of the required reserves.
Click to expand...

17 x the required reserve ratio does not equate to 170%. Given the current required reserve ratio being fractionally equivalent to 1/10: 1/10 x 17/1 = 17/10 which is 170%. 17x's = 1700% FWIW....
 
misterman said:
Doesn't mean it's not inefficient. We can have a more efficient version of capitalism.
Click to expand...

:rofl, capitalism is capitalism. Something else is something else.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Efficiency of market systems depends on competition to weed out the weak. Financial panics lead to heuristic herd behavior, which is neither efficient nor logical, hence the term animal spirits. The difference between a correction and a meltdown essentially depends on the level of market participants who are driven on fear. We know that the upward trend of asset values is very much real.
Click to expand...

You keep talking about these "animal spirits," and it's like you're trying to imply that no one can succeed in these markets because everyone will just save whatever they can. But here's what we see: some companies still succeed; money is saved, and then consumer spending starts to rise again.

So what is left in the correction? Well, people need to get jobs again, unemployment is far too high. What I've heard is causing the lingering unemployment is uncertainty. Changes to unemployment insurance and now health care are now really making the estimation of what a job will cost for a company very hard to predict. As such, they're hesitant to hire new workers.

17 x the required reserve ratio does not equate to 170%. Given the current required reserve ratio being fractionally equivalent to 1/10: 1/10 x 17/1 = 17/10 which is 170%. 17x's = 1700% FWIW....
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was just going off of your post here where you said that it was 170%.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...ng-246-436-per-new-job-58.html#post1058446934

You still didn't respond to the point I was making. If there was a bank run right now, would the banks be able to pay everyone off and still keep some money for themselves? If not, then 17x some arbitrary amount is meaningless.
 
phattonez said:
:rofl, capitalism is capitalism. Something else is something else.
Click to expand...

Wrong.

You can have more efficient capitalism, or less efficent capitalism. Both are still capitalism.

Just like you can have a red hat or a blue hat, both are still hats.
 
misterman said:
Wrong.

You can have more efficient capitalism, or less efficent capitalism. Both are still capitalism.

Just like you can have a red hat or a blue hat, both are still hats.
Click to expand...

If I put a cat on my head and call it a hat, it doesn't mean that it's a hat.
 
phattonez said:
If I put a cat on my head and call it a hat, it doesn't mean that it's a hat.
Click to expand...

But it is possible to have two different kinds of hats.

Just as it is possible to have inefficient capitalism and efficient capitalism.

Do us all a favor - define capitalism and tell us how you can tell when a system is or isn't capitalist. Then we'll explain this to you.
 
misterman said:
But it is possible to have two different kinds of hats.

Just as it is possible to have inefficient capitalism and efficient capitalism.

Do us all a favor - define capitalism and tell us how you can tell when a system is or isn't capitalist. Then we'll explain this to you.
Click to expand...

Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are entirely left into private hands. People don't have to worry about government intervention except for a legal system that ensures that rights are not violated. Everything then is produced by private citizens without any government interference.
 
phattonez said:
Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are entirely left into private hands. People don't have to worry about government intervention except for a legal system that ensures that rights are not violated. Everything then is produced by private citizens without any government interference.
Click to expand...

So if you have a system where 0.1% of the means of production is in public hands, it's not a capitalist system?
 
misterman said:
So if you have a system where 0.1% of the means of production is in public hands, it's not a capitalist system?
Click to expand...

Yes, otherwise it is a mixed economy.
 
phattonez said:
Nope. But some are closer than others.
Click to expand...

Okay, so there is no such thing as capitalism any more.

You realize that insisting on your own definitions of words simply makes you incomprehensible, right?
 
misterman said:
Okay, so there is no such thing as capitalism any more.
Click to expand...

As far as recorded history there probably hasn't been. It's still the ideal that we should strive for.

You realize that insisting on your own definitions of words simply makes you incomprehensible, right?
Click to expand...

No, it means I'm arguing for what I believe, not what someone else believes.
 
phattonez said:
No, it means I'm arguing for what I believe, not what someone else believes.
Click to expand...

No, it means you're just off in your own little world.
 
misterman said:
No, it means you're just off in your own little world.
Click to expand...

That's not an argument showing that I'm wrong. Just because the status quo is the status quo doesn't mean that it's right or the best option.
 
phattonez said:
That's not an argument showing that I'm wrong. Just because the status quo is the status quo doesn't mean that it's right or the best option.
Click to expand...

I was talking about your terminology.

Most people accept that a mixed economy that is mostly capitalist can still be called "capitalist." Most people understand that capitalist doesn't have to mean 100% capitalist. You're just confusing things, to no good end.
 
misterman said:
I was talking about your terminology.

Most people accept that a mixed economy that is mostly capitalist can still be called "capitalist." Most people understand that capitalist doesn't have to mean 100% capitalist. You're just confusing things, to no good end.
Click to expand...

But it is to a good end. Many people use the problems of a mixed economy as an argument against capitalism, when most of the arguments that they have are against the interventionist aspects of the mixed economy. Mischaracterization of an idea is not good for intellectual progress.

You don't call the color gray, white. You call it gray. It has some black, and some white, but it's not completely white, and you make note of it.
 
phattonez said:
But it is to a good end. Many people use the problems of a mixed economy as an argument against capitalism, when most of the arguments that they have are against the interventionist aspects of the mixed economy. Mischaracterization of an idea is not good for intellectual progress.

You don't call the color gray, white. You call it gray. It has some black, and some white, but it's not completely white, and you make note of it.
Click to expand...

Fine, but you're busy calling slightly off-white "gray".
 
misterman said:
Fine, but you're busy calling slightly off-white "gray".
Click to expand...

Because to me, those shades of gray don't just make slightly off-white, it makes full gray to me.
 
misterman said:
To you. Not to most people.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what most people think. If it's not capitalism, then it's not capitalism. Deal with the issue, not with a strawman.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom