YiZhangZhe on May 5, 2009 at 1:55 AM

I haven’t raised or suggested any of the things you are talking about and none of them follow from my proposals.

I am very curious to know how you think it would even be possible to have a national dictatorship (with me in control!) with the power to “prohibit liberty”, “outlaw wealth” and “outlaw weapons”

Because, you idiot, you state in point 2 of your original post that the government should have the power to limit the amount of wealth that any “citizen” can accumulate.

The rest of the items follow by extension from your willingness to prevent the corruption of a few by punishing the property rights of everyone. If you are going to use a sledgehammer to kill the first fly, it is reasonable to assume that you would follow the same logic to kill others.

Here is your point 2 again, because you can’t seem to recall what you wrote yourself:

(2) Power must not be allowed to accumulate in a small number of hands. This might require big changes in the rules about company ownership or land ownership and inheritance laws and will probably annoy a lot of good people, but a society that is long-term stable cannot be achieved unless this is done.

And yet you claim:

Nothing in my proposal would stop you from working as hard as you like or charging a market price for it and getting as rich as you could, owning guns or speaking your mind.

You are going to limit company ownership, land ownership,and inheritance rights, but I can still get as rich as I like? Really? I can haz cash, but I can’t buy land or companies with it, and I can’t will it to whomever I choose? Gee, that’s mighty white of you.

Or maybe that’s an Obamaism: “as rich as I could” meaning “as rich as you’re willing to let me get.”

What interpretation — other than you will limit individual company ownership, land ownership, and ability to pass on your estate as you choose — do you intend when you state that you will “require big changes” in order to prevent the accumulation of power?

You don’t even understand your own arguments, so I really don’t expect you to understand mine.

Troll Feeder on May 4, 2009 at 10:31 PM

You are having an argument with yourself, because I haven’t raised or suggested any of the things you are talking about and none of them follow from my proposals.

I am very curious to know how you think it would even be possible to have a national dictatorship (with me in control!) with the power to “prohibit liberty”, “outlaw wealth” and “outlaw weapons” if, as I have proposed, it is a country where “government is devolved” and “power is not allowed to concentrate in a small number of hands.”

???

Wouldn’t really be possible would it?

What you fear and what I have proposed are somewhere near opposite ends of the spectrum, so why you are directing your angst towards me is a bit of a mystery.

Nothing in my proposal would stop you from working as hard as you like or charging a market price for it and getting as rich as you could, owning guns or speaking your mind. You could even carry-on being rude and making foolish assumptions if you like.

“You say my argument is as old as …” but you are not even addressing my argument. You seem to be merely regurgitating your own fears and projecting them onto my proposal. If you live in the USA then you certainly have some reasons to think the present government might try to do what you fear, but as far as this online HotAir thread goes, you are fighting a bogey man who exists only in your own imagination.

YiZhangZhe on May 4, 2009 at 6:14 PM

The system of minimal restraint must therefore include a mechanism to prevent that concentration of power and wealth, and in-particular prevent it from concentrating in the hands of the foolish, the greedy, or a clique of proactive liberals.

Uh-huh. Well, that really is a concerned, Christian, conservative argument that everyone from Madison to Hayek to Reagan and beyond can really get behind.

Or, actually, it is totalitarian nonsense from one end to the other, and it is lazy to boot.

So, instead of outlawing corruption and coercion, let’s outlaw wealth. It’s so much easier to prohibit liberty to everybody than it is to find a few bad apples who take some criminal advantage of it.

Also, let’s also outlaw weapons, because someone somewhere might do something bad with one. Individual and collective rights to self-defense are nothing compared to that.

We should get us some of them speech codes, too, for similar reasons.

Yeah, let’s make sure that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Michael DeBakey can only have, oh, I dunno, a few million dollars each. Is that OK? I mean, you’re going to be in charge, right? You get to decide, right? Or somebody or some group of somebodies just like you: incorruptible, glistening, and pure; halo shining in the moonlight? Is a few million dollars too much?

Yep, we should have prohibited them from ever getting beyond that. Then we would all be so much better off.

I have a natural, God-given right to work as much as I want.

I have a natural, God-given right to get paid as much as the market will bear for all the work I can do.

I have a natural, God-given right to keep and spend all of the wealth I generate howsoever I see fit, without regard for the envy of my neighbors.

I have a natural, God-given, Declaration-affirmed right to overthrow any government that declares otherwise, too.

The general restriction of liberty is not the only way to circumvent the evil of a few men; it is, if fact, the worst possible method. It is the antithesis of fighting bad speech with good speech and fighting bad governance with the next election cycle.

Your argument is as old as the blood-soaked hills. It is the credo of every two-bit, wanna-be, populist dictator who ever lived: “You cannot be safe until you surrender your liberty.”

Do be careful, Jackie Chan; there is enough evil crap spilling from your mouth and keyboard that people may realize what an awful person you are and stop paying to see your movies.

Of course, in your world, that’s to be desired, so no problem, I guess.

Ah. You think that long-term social stability is achieved through the abrogation of property rights.

If you had thought a little harder about points (1) and (2) it might have been obvious to you that what I am proposing is much more aligned with “every person acting in his own self-interest with only a bare minimum of restraints on his actions” than to any kind of Stalinist state.

Power and wealth tends to flow most easily to those who already have it. If people/corporations can inherit and accumulate wealth and power then very quickly that power and wealth becomes concentrated in few hands … exactly what has happened.

Those few hands, acting in their own interests with minimal restraint, can then effect very great restraint over everybody else. The system of minimal restraint must therefore include a mechanism to prevent that concentration of power and wealth, and in-particular prevent it from concentrating in the hands of the foolish, the greedy, or a clique of proactive liberals.

I have already indicated that we need to reduce the power and influence of central government so it follows rationally that we cannot allow the state to become the ‘owner’ of the wealth.

Oh, FWIW, under your idea I think that you will find your 4th point unnecessary. No one is coming to your country. Emigration, on the other hand…

Troll Feeder on May 4, 2009 at 5:28 PM

Is that so? Thank you for telling me, because I would certainly never have worked that out by myself; probably because I let facts influence what would otherwise be nothing more than a comprehensive set of ignorant assumptions. More fool me I suppose?

Besides, what made you think I was referring only to my own country (whatever you happen to think that is)?

Do be careful, Troll Feeder, there’s enough ambiguity in your screen name for you to be in danger of becoming your own next meal.

It is also resuscitating previously discontinued bonds, such as the seven-year note and the three-year note, to try to mop up any available money all along the yield curve.

Hmmm… any downside to ‘mopping up any available money’? Like, nobody else in the economy might have need for some credit, right?

‘Sorry, Mr. Entrepreneur, we can’t lend you money to build your new job-creating factory because the Treasury has already borrowed from anyone who has money to lend, to pay for … well, we’re not sure where it all went, but we know part of it was for a unicorn sanctuary.’

The problem here is that Bush II tried this with privatizing Social Security but it didn’t work out. The Bill got shot down and people most likely would have lost a large portion of their savings with the downturn in the market.

This isn’t correct. Putting aside the question of “privatizing,” which is actually something else (private administration of the system), it’s not true that the President’s proposal would have led to people losing a large amount of savings (at least, not based on events to this point.)

The President made his personal account proposal in 2005, with the accounts to begin taking contributions in 2009. No one now receiving benefits would have been eligible for an account.

Younger workers eligible for the accounts would just be starting contributions, and would be buying in a down market. For every year of contributions to Social Security accounts by a typical worker, the total percentage of their overall Social Security benefit that would have been subject to investment risk would have been less than 2%.

Obviously, no one can predict the future with accuracy, but market declines to date would have had a very slight adverse impact on Social Security benefits, even future benefits.

YiZhangZhe on May 4, 2009 at 4:01 PM
(2) Power must not be allowed to accumulate in a small number of hands. This might require big changes in the rules about company ownership or land ownership and inheritance laws and will probably annoy a lot of good people, but a society that is long-term stable cannot be achieved unless this is done.

Ah. You think that long-term social stability is achieved through the abrogation of property rights.

Adam Smith thinks that long-term social stability is achieved through every person acting in his own self-interest with only a bare minimum of restraints on his actions (thou shalt not steal, murder, etc.)

Adam Smith’s idea creates a wealth of inexpensive, readily available resources that anyone can buy, because it is in everyone’s best interests to be as productive as they can.

Your idea re-creates, inter alia, Stalinist Russia.

Oh, FWIW, under your idea I think that you will find your 4th point unnecessary. No one is coming to your country. Emigration, on the other hand…

All you can hope for is that the US stiffs China on all that principle. Serves the Chinese right for lending money to a country addicted to pork.

Peter Schiff has warned about the bond bubble bursting. When that happens, if it happens, that will be the end of the US as we know it. I’ve been eating a lot of peanut butter recently. It’s cheap and it stores a long time.

My question is what is the conservative solution for fixing these investments in a timely fashion while making sure that we do not increase the debt?

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 1:37 PM

Your short question is perfectly good, but requires an essay length answer to do it justice. What follows is not that essay.

First, there is a limit to the amount of complexity one generation can handle before it dies and our societies have become far too complicated for us to control.

Furthermore the society has grown into something that is inherently unstable.

This has arisen because power (in all situations: neighbourhood, business, and especially government, … and in all forms: economic, political and physical force, …) has been distributed to people who, on account of of their lack of self-control, their bad character, their inexperience, etc, are uncapable of using that power wisely. When power (energy) is applied to the wrong parts of a complex system, the system will inevitably break.

This poor distribution of power has arisen for many reasons. One is that corporation laws when originally drafted did not forsee how much power corporations, and as a result individuals, would one day have. Another reason is that topics such as ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ have come to dominate the debate about who should do what and when. There are other reasons too.

Another problem is that, in practice if not in theory, we presently have government by minority vote, whereby the people who stay silent (because they are perfectly satisfied with the status-quo) are presumed to be in favour of whatever change is being proposed. This means that, in practice, decisions are made by those who make the biggest disturbance, not by those who have wholesome experience, wisdom or virtue, and almost never by the people who are actually doing the ground work of creating and nurturing a great society (by working diligently and honestly, minding their own business, looking after family and neighbours, cleaning their yards and generally keeping the world turning). The result is that we now have a ‘political nobility’ (who could be poverty-stricken student activists or wealthy financiers) who live as parasites whimsically rearranging the lives of those whose work gives them the social and phsyical infrastructure in which they act.

Without writing the whole essay, the basic requirements for a solution are:

(1) Central government must be simplified and reduced, not a little, but perhaps by 50%, 70%, 90% … Government must be devolved more widely.

(2) Power must not be allowed to accumulate in a small number of hands. This might require big changes in the rules about company ownership or land ownership and inheritance laws and will probably annoy a lot of good people, but a society that is long-term stable cannot be achieved unless this is done.

(3) The “do nothing” option should always be included in every list of proposals and anybody who doesn’t vote should be presumed to have chosen the do-nothing option. This would take a lot of power away from the inexperienced, the foolish, the activists and the agitators and effectively give power to the people who are quietly minding their own business keeping society afloat.

(4) Immigration must be strictly controlled to prevent instability. People must be assessed for their ability to contribute to the society, not just for their individual needs.

This is just the briefest of brief *ahem* outlines (no, really it is!). Anybody who has seen a few of my posts here at Hotair can probably guess that “I could go on” (and write the entire essay) but I won’t!

Sorry for being so basic, but athensboy in his green leisure suit needs some basic economic understanding.

And I don’t see why rail would be a waste. Rail is extremely efficient for carrying cross-country bulk items.

What’s better than Rail for bulk cross-country shipping?

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 1:51 PM

There’s no question, rail is great for freight. If it costs less to ship bulk items by rail than by truck, businesses will ship large containers by rail to major distribution centers, then let trucks carry them short distances to market. None of this requires any government involvement.

The problem comes in trying to develop mass-transit railways for passenger travel. Except in congested areas where parking is a problem, passenger railways are often slower than traveling by car, and in many areas there are a few overloaded trains during rush hour, followed by nearly-empty trains during off-hours, which are not more efficient than cars. Rights-of-way can be expensive in congested areas, and passenger trains can be forced to slow down due to slower freight trains.

Some people have advocated high-speed passenger trains, such as those in Europe. France’s TGV has a cruising speed of 180 mph, but it must run slower in congested areas (to avoid mowing down idiots who cross the tracks), and the high-speed trains must run on special tracks in rural areas, with extremely gentle curves and slopes, no grade crossings, and fences to protect livestock and wildlife.

A high-speed train will only attract riders if passengers get to their destination faster than in a plane. Allowing a half-hour taxi ride between downtown and an airport, and an hour to get through security, a 150-mph train beats a 500-mph plane for a trip less than about 500 miles. This can work for two large cities within 500 miles separated by relatively flat, open land, such as in the Great Plains or along the southeast coast or Florida. Routes such as Dallas/Houston, Chicago/St. Louis, Houston/New Orleans, or Atlanta/Raleigh might be feasible for high-speed rail, but the Washington/Baltimore/Phila/New York/Boston corridor is far too congested, and most other areas of the country are too hilly for it to be economical.

The question becomes, is the Obama Administration ready to STUDY these situations on a case-by-case basis, or just throw money at everything, whether or not it works?

When he pointed out that in fact, all of this spending was only possible as a result of borrowing, she didn’t think that sounded like a good idea.

Moral of the story: talk to your friends. Educate them. You’d be amazed what people assume.

But my focus is what is the conservative solution?

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 1:47 PM

It’s a fair question and I’ll give a general answer. The answer is that we’re going have to take our medicine. We have companies that are inefficient and losing money (GM) and the solution is that they file for bankruptcy. Sorry union workers. We have a housing bubble with people who overextended on their mortgages on houses they should never have been allowed to buy and loans they never should have gotten. The solution is that people are going to lose their home and their mortgaged shirts.

In the end you can’t legislate water to flow uphill, repeal the Law of Gravity or overturn the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. When you try to legislate an economic down-turn out of existence you fail and only make the down-turn bigger. That’s what we’re facing right now.

Bambi’s in a hole and he’s working up a real good sweat digging deeper. But all he’s ever known is how to “shovel it” and he’s been shovelling a lot of it lately.

Look for him to shovel more …

Let’s face it, the majority of people won’t get into the stock market. They just want to dump their money it a pot and collect it later.

That’s really their problem, though, isn’t it? Before SS, people weren’t eating rats off the street. History didn’t begin when SS was enacted.

What would be really cool is if I can just divert the money I put into social security into my retirement plan. Seems like a small change in law to me.

Feds shouldn’t be removing money from your check to ensure you have a retirement plan. End of story. If you want to, excellent. If not, well, that’s your choice.

I am leaning this way but not sure about leaving the minimum wage to the states. Set’s up a “Race to the Bottom” scenario where the states that pay the lowest wages gets the highest amount of traffic.

At some point, people will refuse to work if the pay is too low. the free market will settle this problem.

SS pay-ins rise a little faster than inflation.

Too bad, though. If you put your money that was forced into SS into the stock market, over that same period of time, you end up with like 20 to 30 times more money in the end.

Congressmen get to do this – they can put a certain % of their money into the stock market. Wonder why they won’t let the peasants.

lorien1973 on May 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM

Let’s face it, the majority of people won’t get into the stock market. They just want to dump their money it a pot and collect it later.

That’s essentially the entire premise of Social Security. And people like that they don’t have to think about it. Same way with the Employer’s 5% Retirement plan.

What would be really cool is if I can just divert the money I put into social security into my retirement plan. Seems like a small change in law to me.

If you have a retirement plan, no SS.

If you don’t have one, you use SS.

Maybe this has been tackled before. Not sure.

devolve welfare system to the states. let them decide if they want to keep it or not and how to fund it.

get rid of the federal minimum wage. most states have one set anyways. let states compete for these “minimum wage” jobs.

remove federal education mandates. let states decide how to educate their citizens.

same with federal regulations, etc etc etc.

lorien1973 on May 4, 2009 at 2:24 PM

In short, absolve most things to the states?

I am leaning this way but not sure about leaving the minimum wage to the states. Set’s up a “Race to the Bottom” scenario where the states that pay the lowest wages gets the highest amount of traffic.

I agree with abolishing the welfare system completely. There has to be a better way to take care of kids without setting up an entire dependency class. I just don’t know how.

Not sure about the other federal regulations you refer to. Banking/food/medical regulations should be Federal IMHO.

You just earned my vote.

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 2:25 PM

SS pay-ins rise a little faster than inflation.

Too bad, though. If you put your money that was forced into SS into the stock market, over that same period of time, you end up with like 20 to 30 times more money in the end.

Congressmen get to do this – they can put a certain % of their money into the stock market. Wonder why they won’t let the peasants.

You would get a return, it just would be equal to what you put in. The investment just rises with the rate of inflation.

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 2:25 PM

You know what’s funny is I don’t really even want the return at this point.

The whole thing has sickened me so much that I want for them to just cut it off so I never have to see it again or know that I am contributing to this madness.

Maybe just sold differently by a better communicator.

ckoeber on May 4, 2009 at 2:22 PM

Yeah, Reagan probably had a much better way of delivering it than I do, I suppose.

Oh well.

I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve put about 45,000 dollars into it, but I don’t expect to see a dime of that returned to me.

I wonder how many people around my age really do expect to see any return from social security – I’m in my mid-40s.

Do you?

Otis B on May 4, 2009 at 2:16 PM

You would get a return, it just would be equal to what you put in. The investment just rises with the rate of inflation.

As mentioned, probably a good way to go but a better communicator is needed. None of the current people in the GOP knows how to communicate core values well.