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Your view: Food Stamps and Unemployment

Do you believe Pelosi about Foodstamps and Unemployment?


  • Total voters
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Would you classify a lady who has a history of choosing abusive boyfriends as insane? (we all know someone like this) I certainly wouldn't even though she is not learning from her choices. This sort of behavior is typical with humans.

No, as she's choosing different guys.
 
So all people of the "type" that she likes are abusive?

Thinking about it, I think the answer is yes. Girl likes a guy who is a gang banger or has some other desirable badboy quality and it turns out the guy is a jerk. Girl breaks up with the guy, goes back to the guy, back and forth, eventually puts the guy behind him, only to choose the same "type" of person the next time around (assuming she doesn't have a baby with the first guy because it will make him "love" her).

I am pretty sure we all know someone like this. Heck, I know one lady who is in her late 40s and still tries to act this way.
 
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Thinking about it, I think the answer is yes. Girl likes a guy who is a gang banger or has some other desirable badboy quality and it turns out the guy is a jerk. Girl breaks up with the guy, goes back to the guy, back and forth, eventually puts the guy behind him, only to choose the same "type" of person the next time around (assuming she doesn't have a baby with the first guy because it will make him "love" her).

I am pretty sure we all know someone like this. Heck, I know one lady who is in her late 40s and still tries to act this way.

Then you have to ask yourself, is she insane, or does she like the quality so much that she is willing to risk the abuse? I'm not saying it's healthy or good, I'm just saying that it can potentially be rational (but I can't make a judgment of her mental state).
 
But if they are irrational the wishing well scenario must be true. There is no way around that unless you say that actors are rational.

So because they aren't irrational in the particular case of not wasting money on wishing wells, it must mean that they're ALWAYS rational from the perspective of economics? That doesn't make any sense. :confused:

People are more willing to behave irrationally and throw money away when, among other reasons, A) they can justify to themselves that this time is different, and B) they don't really understand the investment. That makes, say, a credit-default swap bubble more likely than a wishing well bubble.
 
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Then you have to ask yourself, is she insane, or does she like the quality so much that she is willing to risk the abuse? I'm not saying it's healthy or good, I'm just saying that it can potentially be rational (but I can't make a judgment of her mental state).

Good, this is where I was trying to lead you, to the juxtaposition between emotionality and rationality because often they interact when we make decisions. This goes back to Hallam's point. Humans are emotional creates that make decisions for emotional reasons. Often we inject rationality into something to determine the best way to satisfy our emotions, but thats it. Doing something stupid over and over means we are letting our hearts guide us and not our heads and it something every person does from time to time.
 
So because they aren't irrational in the particular case of not wasting money on wishing wells, it must mean that they're ALWAYS rational from the perspective of economics? That doesn't make any sense. :confused:

What doesn't make sense is irrational in this case but rational in another. We're either irrational or rational, we can't be both.

People are more willing to behave irrationally and throw money away when, among other reasons, A) they can justify to themselves that this time is different, and B) they don't really understand the investment. That makes, say, a credit-default swap bubble more likely than a wishing well bubble.

Because it is different. It's not behaving irrationally. This was something new. Notice how people aren't going out and buying those things today?
 
Good, this is where I was trying to lead you, to the juxtaposition between emotionality and rationality because often they interact when we make decisions. This goes back to Hallam's point. Humans are emotional creates that make decisions for emotional reasons. Often we inject rationality into something to determine the best way to satisfy our emotions, but thats it. Doing something stupid over and over means we are letting our hearts guide us and not our heads and it something every person does from time to time.

That has nothing to do with rationality. She's still acting in her own self-interest, and it's rational. What would be irrational is being dissatisfied with the one guy and continually going back to that guy.
 
That has nothing to do with rationality. She's still acting in her own self-interest, and it's rational. What would be irrational is being dissatisfied with the one guy and continually going back to that guy.

You have a weird definition of rational :confused:

I just confirmed it. I looked it up in the dictionary, and rationality appears to be the use of reason to make a decision. (this is the definition I was using in my arguments at least). Reason and emotion are two different things ...
 
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What doesn't make sense is irrational in this case but rational in another. We're either irrational or rational, we can't be both.

Huh? Of course we can be. Almost everyone is irrational some of the time and rational some of the time, and the topics where people are likely to be more/less rational are pretty consistent. People are pretty rational when it comes to buying a high-quality product or a low-quality product for the same price; people are much less rational when it comes to evaluating risk versus reward.

phattonez said:
Because it is different. It's not behaving irrationally. This was something new. Notice how people aren't going out and buying those things today?

They aren't buying them today because they just crashed and now even the most novice investor knows of the risks that they carry, not because people suddenly became more rational. People will just move on to the next bubble, telling themselves that this time will be different.
 
It would increase consumption, that's simple to see. Goods will be relatively worth more because of inflation after a while. What about investment? Investment spending means that you'll have a lot of other expenses down the line (increased production has to be maintained). So if there is inflation and you have a certain sum of money right now for investment, what will happen to those future costs? You know they're going to go up as inflation continues. In that sense, does inflatioes it hurt total investment? Remember that the demand you expect won't actually be there in the end because inflation-fueled demand will necessarily crash eventually.

I was simply pointing out the flaw in your argument that more inflation necessarily means less investment. You are clearly wrong in the short term. The savings rate is a percentage of income saved. The amount of income can clearly go up if inflation induces more spending. Inflation clearly will cause more short term spending, as people shift their holdings of money into assets.


Then your flow diagram is flawed. You're only looking at the short run. Eventually the inflation will be realized and people will see that they have less money saved than they actually believed. Hence a push to refill the coffers, in a sense.

Money is neutral in the long run. It is no necessarily super-neutral. Inflation can have a negative effect on growth. Though the main reason for such a phenomenon has little to do with the "realization" of inflation. In the long run prices and interest rates have been allowed to fully adjust (this is literally the definition of long run in economics). Instead it is things that are not allowed to adjust, such as the tax code (bracket creep) that are more likely responsible.



There is no fixed number of jobs! Right now, people have to lower their expectations because their labor is not as valuable as they think it is. Furthermore, if it was that valuable, then there would be competition to drive those wages up. If that hasn't happened, then the problem isn't sticky wages, but rather unreasonable expectations of the unemployed (which is fueled by subsidizing unemployment).

This is extremely simple to understand. If the demand for labor falls the price of labor will fall. This results in a lower quantity of labor. If something keeps the price from falling, then there will be a surplus of labor.
 
You have a weird definition of rational :confused:

I just confirmed it. I looked it up in the dictionary, and rationality appears to be the use of reason to make a decision. (this is the definition I was using in my arguments at least). Reason and emotion are two different things ...

The use of reason and emotion are not mutually exclusive.
 
No, that's not what she's arguing. How do you guys get so much wrong?
That very latest study shows that liberals are more likely to graduate from college and that conservatives are most likely to not even graduate from grade school.....lol....
About 1000 hours of PBS and a high school education, free of Limbaugh and Beck would fix this problem.
 
That very latest study shows that liberals are more likely to graduate from college and that conservatives are most likely to not even graduate from grade school.....lol....
About 1000 hours of PBS and a high school education, free of Limbaugh and Beck would fix this problem.

that is moronic. HS dropouts have supported the dems in every national election over the last several times

the people most likely to vote for the dems are the groups most likely to drop out of highschool

if the liberals are so smart why do so many of them need government help to survive
 
All it would do is raise prices since you're sapping away investment potential and diverting it toward demand. More demand and the same production gets you what exactly?



That's a mischaracterization if I ever heard it. Private charity can take care of people and they do it better. Again, where is the documentation of a huge mass of people starving in the 1800s? This, I cannot believe I am reading! Even todays high school graduates know of the Irish potato famine, and this was not the only famine of that era.



I can easily make that argument. When people get money for doing nothing, it makes their demands for compensation for doing something higher. Remove those benefits and people would be more willing to work.



Because you're ignoring capital? :)
Private charity has its limitations..
Ever wonder why , at one recent time, half the word's population was communist?
 
Private charity has its limitations..
Ever wonder why , at one recent time, half the word's population was communist?

lots of really stupid people and a fair amount of power hungry turds controlling them?
 
But why. Why don't people learn?Greed gets in the way. Like I said, the irrational man explanation really is lacking. People generally are smart, so why do they get fooled?But people are not smart, they are greedy. What causes people to get fooled?
The answer is obvious, the solution is not..
Why don't we study the German solution, their problems do not seem to be nearly as bad as ours.
 
lots of really stupid people and a fair amount of power hungry turds controlling them?
That would have been my answer 20-30 years ago, today, I'd look for the causes of communism.
Would you agree that "private charity" has its limitations?
 
That would have been my answer 20-30 years ago, today, I'd look for the causes of communism.
Would you agree that "private charity" has its limitations?

sure in a society where one party has spent 70 years creating and expanding people dependent on government handouts to the point they expect them and feel entitled to them
 
Huh? Of course we can be. Almost everyone is irrational some of the time and rational some of the time, and the topics where people are likely to be more/less rational are pretty consistent. People are pretty rational when it comes to buying a high-quality product or a low-quality product for the same price; people are much less rational when it comes to evaluating risk versus reward.

So people keep putting their money into the vending machine that keeps eating their money?

They aren't buying them today because they just crashed and now even the most novice investor knows of the risks that they carry, not because people suddenly became more rational. People will just move on to the next bubble, telling themselves that this time will be different.

If they aren't doing it today because they realized it was a stupid investment then that makes them rational!
 
Private charity has its limitations..
Ever wonder why , at one recent time, half the word's population was communist?

Ireland did not have a capitalist economy back then. It's tough to donate to charity when you're being exploited by a ruling party (and this is real exploitation, not made up Marxist exploitation).
 
The answer is obvious, the solution is not..
Why don't we study the German solution, their problems do not seem to be nearly as bad as ours.

People are greedy so they want to make bad decisions that lose them money? Get a better theory of human action, your's is sorely lacking.
 
So people keep putting their money into the vending machine that keeps eating their money?

Yes, essentially. That's why bubbles happen.

phattonez said:
If they aren't doing it today because they realized it was a stupid investment then that makes them rational!

No, that just makes them knowledgeable about current events. The fact that they created a bubble in the first place makes them irrational. BTW, this phenomenon isn't merely limited to things we typically regard as "bubbles." Take the following example: Which of the following industry portfolios of stocks do you think will have the highest rate of return over the next decade? A) Biotechnology, health care, and pharmaceuticals; B) Computer software, information technology, and nanotechnology; C) Grocery stores, tobacco, and confectionery.

Most people would pick either A or B, because they sound sexy. But the historical evidence would strongly suggest that the correct answer is C. Why? Because whenever people think that a company is doing something innovative, they bid up the stock price to ridiculously high levels, which lowers the rate of return. The un-sexy cash cows, on the other hand, are often overlooked. Historically, stocks with a low P/E ratio have performed the best. If people were rational, there would be no correlation between P/E and rate of return because the market would rationally settle on the "correct" price.
 
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Yes, essentially. That's why bubbles happen.

But people don't keep putting their money into vending machines that keep eating their money.

No, that just makes them knowledgeable about current events. The fact that they created a bubble in the first place makes them irrational. BTW, this phenomenon isn't merely limited to things we typically regard as "bubbles." Take the following example: Which of the following industry portfolios of stocks do you think will have the highest rate of return over the next decade? A) Biotechnology, health care, and pharmaceuticals; B) Computer software, information technology, and nanotechnology; C) Grocery stores, tobacco, and confectionery.

Most people would pick either A or B, because they sound sexy. But the historical evidence would strongly suggest that the correct answer is C. Why? Because whenever people think that a company is doing something innovative, they bid up the stock price to ridiculously high levels, which lowers the rate of return. The un-sexy cash cows, on the other hand, are often overlooked. Historically, stocks with a low P/E ratio have performed the best. If people were rational, there would be no correlation between P/E and rate of return because the market would rationally settle on the "correct" price.

People make mistakes, I am perfectly willing to admit that as most libertarians do/should. However, I do not admit that they keep making the same mistake over and over again. It is the fact that people learn from their mistakes and engage only in those behaviors that are mutually beneficial in the long term that allows capitalism to function. If people were to make the same decisions that make them worse overall, then I would agree with you. However, people don't keep engaging in the same action that has made them worse off over and over again. They will eventually change and try something else that does benefit them.

As an aside, how could irrational people force irrational people to act rationally? Just a tangential criticism that I don't want to get to involved in, but is interesting to me.
 
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