Saffire

Yes, but what % of the population are psychopaths? Not enough to cause the downfall of society without government. Drug wars exist because of government laws banning certain drugs from being sold in public. In an anarchy, you could get your crack from a vending machine. Does that mean there would be more crackheads? Probably not. Governments and laws don't change peoples' basic nature, they just punish people for doing stuff after the fact. In the same way governments can't prevent people from getting hooked on drugs, they can't prevent people from going out and committing murders. Societal order comes in two flavors: stigma and deterrence. First, people don't like people who are jerks. So if you're a known jerk, it will be hard to find anyone who will do business with you because of trust issues. Second, there's deterrence, which is basically the Second Amendment. If you know it's more dangerous to steal your neighbor's TV than it is to get a job and earn the money to buy a TV, then you won't do it. If the government disappeared overnight, you wouldn't really notice. Eventually things would start to run more smoothly, however. That isn't to say there wouldn't be any more violent crime (anarchism isn't utopianism). But at the same time, there probably wouldn't be more violent crime than there currently is. EDIT: Oh, and everyone would be fabulously wealthy, relatively speaking. 50% richer or more.

Noonsun, my goal isn't to annoy you or prove you wrong, I just want you to think about the world from a very different (and admittedly strange - in the sense that anarchism isn't very popular) vantage point. I firmly believe that when someone rises above the political battleground and views governments as foreign entities rather than friendly helpers, things become amazingly predictable! Corporations are made up of people, just like governments are made up of people. Except when you stop paying your cable bill, Comcast doesn't kidnap you and put you in jail - they just cut off your cable. So from a purely ethical perspective, I trust businesses more than I trust governments, and so should you! The arguments governments use to justify their existence are just fear-mongering. "If it weren't for us, black people would still be slaves!" "If it weren't for us, you'd have no roads and there would be a terrible depression!" "If it weren't for us, we would immediately be invaded by China and Russia!" Your gut reaction when you hear these things is to unquestioningly believe them... considering whether they might not be true is a waste of time, they'll say.

The gold standard issue is complex? Surely you jest. Anyone who supports the existence of a Federal Reserve is advocating counterfeiting. Noonsun, I can't argue with your positions because you advocate violence. Violence is illogical. If I print money, I'm an evildoer and am punished. But if Ben Bernanke or Greenspan do it, they are valiantly fighting off a recession! Take a step back and think about this. What's the distinction? The position of statists is that "if we allow an organization to exist which claims a monopoly on the initiation of violence, then society will run more smoothly than if each individual actor is able to choose for himself." It's quite similar to the Catholic Church's argument that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. Statists assume the government is designed to work for them. This isn't the case at all. The state is a self-perpetuating organization for the non-productive. It can't exist without violence and (above all) the indoctrination of children into believing that CERTAIN violent acts and coercion are justified. Taking money from landowners fits in that category. Because something happens everywhere, does that make it right? And is that money really going toward protection from invasion, or is it going to a few other things as well? Like a standing military that spans the globe. So, because something is legal that makes it fair? Or if everyone is stolen from, then there's a net increase in fairness? This is nonsense. You're just playing with peoples' money at gunpoint. You have no understanding of economics. This doesn't address my point about there being no incentive in a subsidized industry to reduce prices or innovate. Papa Smurf can't invent an EKG scanner, and he's certainly not interested in keeping the cost of his services low - after all, he's the only game in town. If someone else sets up a medicine shop, he'll tax them heavily. You seem to be against corporations becoming monopolies, but you've got no problem with the State becoming a monopoly (in fact, you encourage it). That's massive hypocrisy.

EDIT: btw, Nick, I exited the TNA trade today with a 31% gain overall... I suspect we're headed for another dip and increased volatility.

He's in the movie "Across the Universe", definitely check it out. Here's another good looking guy, Jensen Ackles

When I think of indie I usually associate it with a male singer who has a sort of high-pitched voice, like Death Cab for Cutie. Also it looks like their mom dressed them before they went out on the stage.

Only the best musician of our time! Joe Satriani. :laugh3: EDIT: To be honest that song sounds a lot like some early Santana. In fact, the theme sounds very similar to his guitar in "Wind".

Oh damn! You discovered Coldplay's dark secret! I guess our only recourse is to commit honorable suicides!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTDFg9iQUDk]YouTube - True News 25: Lessons from the Great Depression...[/ame] Here's a great video on the reason the great depression lasted longer than it should have.

Well I didn't take the pics, I found them on a blog and mirrored them so I could post them here. But the legal definition of stalking is different. You're allowed to take pictures of anyone, as long as they're in a public place where they could expect pictures to be taken. That's why the paparazzi can't be charged with "stalking", as long as the celebrity is in public.

No, that's okay, and I've seen all of these arguments before. Basically what you're saying is that it's okay to steal, if the stolen money subsidizes certain businesses and middle-men. I'll edit this post to refute each argument in full soon. EDIT: Because the Fed doesn't inflate the currency all at once, doesn't mean it isn't stealing from you. Over the period of the last 22 years alone (my age), the value of a dollar was halved. As Nick says in the post below me, over the period of your lifetime (assuming the same rate of inflation by the Fed, which is unlikely) the value of your money will be reduced to nearly zero relative what it was when you were born. A lifetime of earnings... evaporated. And yes, the military could walk into your home and kill you. However this event is unlikely given the fact that government is parasitic. It needs the host (you) in order to survive and thrive. Because remember that a government doesn't generate value like a typical business does - it only steals. If you think you own property, try not paying your property taxes. And you're right, you can't own land outright in most countries (I haven't researched to see if there are states that don't have property taxes... there might be). That doesn't make it okay to make citizens pay protection money on their land. This is the "America: love it or leave it" argument. The idea that there is a spectrum from capitalism to socialism is false. There are only free markets and centrally planned economies. The free markets exist only illegally - when you get paid "under the table" for your services or you make a trade. In these cases, taxation doesn't affect the price of the good/service, so you aren't paying any more than the true value. This "underground economy" is far bigger than most people realize. I'm not sure where you get this idea about a tradeoff. So... I have to expect to pay more for some goods/services if I want to have other, cheaper goods/services? Just because the cost of one thing falls, doesn't mean the cost of another thing has to go up. In a capitalist economy (without government interference) the cost of all goods/services falls over time. This is because of the profit motive and economies of scale. When the government subsidizes some things (like it does with college, housing, healthcare, etc) the cost of these things goes up. Think about it this way: Let's say the government decided everyone should own a flat-screen TV. It offers people a $1000 tax credit if they buy a TV. What will happen? In a socialist utopia, everybody's taxes would be $1000 lower, and everyone would have a nice TV in their den. ("A chicken in every pot!" like FDR once said) In reality, the outcome is much different. Because the TV manufacturers know they don't have to compete for the money, they jack up their prices by -- you guessed it -- $1000. The tax credit is a wash, and the TV manufacturers are effectively using the government as their gun to collect more profits! This is what happens in every field the government attempts to subsidize. Costs go up, and services become more difficult for the average Joe to obtain. The debate about healthcare has a particularly silly emotional aspect to it ("Grandma will die unless I tax you!") but you have to keep in mind that Grandma will also die if she can't get a steak dinner at Longhorn tonight. So perhaps the government should subsidize that as well? Foodcare for all! And miraculously steak dinners become more expensive. It's excruciatingly predictable. Sweden - a myth. If Sweden were admitted to the US as a new state, it would rank the poorest (comparing the median household incomes). The Sweden theory seems to be that higher taxes = greater prosperity. How that could possibly be the case is anyone's guess. This is halfway true. The "keeping up with the Jones's" mentality has always existed as long as there has been a middle class. People in the middle class aspire to be richer than their parents. When you compare the standard of living of King Louis the Umpteen to a modern middle class working dad, the dad wins because of modern conveniences and technology. I would love to be a poor person living in the year 3000! But this goes back to Bastiat's essay on what is seen versus what is unseen. We can see prosperity in the form of new inventions and technologies... but we can't see the businesses and inventions that don't exist today because of government interference in the market. Taxes are like friction that decrease economic efficiency. I'd guess we're a solid 40 or 50 years behind where we would be if we had a truly free market. We're basically living in 1962, sans government. You can't see the cost of the Iraq war or the war on terror, you can't see the cost of the bailout or inflation, etc. It's invisible. You know about a man named Bernie Madoff? He ran a ponzi scheme, where people would invest money in his "hedge fund" and he would spend it. If someone asked for his money back, he'd give it to them (plus the "returns", which was actually just a bit of extra cash he fudged from one of his other investors). Eventually it collapsed and he was discovered. What Bernie Madoff was doing (and got put in jail for) is what Bank of America does. In fact, all major banks in the US do this - they lend money they don't have. It's called "fractional reserve banking". http://www.scribd.com/doc/7507475/Americas-Great-Depression-by-Murray-Rothbard Here's the definitive book on what caused the Great Depression. We weren't on a gold standard during the Great Depression (it was in name only). The Federal Reserve needed money to spend on FDR's public works projects, and it couldn't get that money through taxation (that would have made the economy even worse) so it printed it. In fact, in 1933 the government banned owning gold, and it confiscated Americans' gold.

Noonsun, here's another thing to think about: If you doubt that we're constantly in a depression, look at what leisure is like for workers today compared with what it was like 50 or 60 years ago. Before inflation, people could save money in their bank and it would always be there to spend on retirement or a vacation. Usually only the man needed to work, while his wife could stay home and take care of the chores or garden. Getting time off from work wasn't very difficult. Nowadays, in order to be considered middle class, both the man and the woman need to have six-figure-paying jobs. Raising children is more expensive. Doctors no longer make house calls, and healthcare is more expensive. College is far more expensive. Home ownership is far more expensive, so more people are forced to rent. Getting free time for a vacation is far more difficult. Retirement is nearly impossible because your 401K is worth only what it was in 1997 today (12 years of stock market gains and your dilligent savings have been eradicated). Even the money you put in a bank account is worth about half as much as it was ten years ago, because of the Federal Reserve. That's the "rat race" everybody dreads. Where "job" stands for "Just Over Broke". Sure, we have flat screen TV's and pretty cars and McMansions. But that sort of progress has only masked what we've lost in the process - freedom!

Okay, The Federal Reserve has the capacity to print money, and the Federal Government has the capacity to tax (steal) money. As long as there is a monopoly on the creation of credit and thievery, there can be no such thing as real property rights. After all, I could just print up some cash and buy you out. If you refuse my offer, I can invent a tax to make it more difficult for you to own your property (this is why you can't own land in the United States - you're simply renting it from the Federal Government). The economic cycles we experience are caused by these government manipulations. Therefore, I think it's not inaccurate to say we're constantly in a depression. We're just waiting for the downcycle. It's like saying you're always in the ocean, regardless of whether your boat is at the top of a swell or underwater. EDIT: You might think I'm exaggerating, but there's a great essay on this subject. http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html Here the great French economist Bastiat talks about the assumptions many people make about economics. One major assumption is that during the good times (booms) people tend to think, "It couldn't get any better than this!" and "Thank goodness for taxes. They pay for our roads and education." Bastiat argues that prosperity is an illusion, because people aren't aware of what life would be like without government. He argues everyone would be far wealthier, and there would never be recessions.

Every second the Federal Reserve exists, we're in a depression. Stefan Molyneaux made a great argument that as long as the Fed exists, property rights don't exist. And it really makes sense when you think about it.

I'm referring to the original murder victim, not the guy in the jail cell.

By the same token, the murder victim could have been carrying a gun. But he wasn't, so he got what was coming to him! Oh well, it could have been avoided altogether. EDIT: There is no such thing as a perfect justice system. But we can also easily say that monopolies never have our best interests at heart. Our current justice system is a monopoly.

It's easy for you to say that until someone sends you to prison for a crime you didn't commit. Framing people is quite easy. You just have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this case it strikes me as a clear example of the evils of the state. First, they offer him a deal if he testifies against someone, then they put him in the same cage as the guy he testifies against. I was in jail recently (a couple of weeks ago) for a grand total of 3 days. It wasn't a maximum security prison, but it was a real county jail. I didn't commit a crime, the police officer lied on my arrest warrant. The crime I was charged with was "hindering an officer" (because they claimed I was attempting to keep my brother from getting arrested for underage drinking). I'm currently out on $5000 personal recognizance bail. The government has sent me three different letters with three different dates on them, all written in CAPITAL LETTERS and threatening to arrest me and take $5000 from me if I don't show up to court on a specific date at a specific time. What if I were to send someone a letter written in ALL CAPITALS demanding they meet me somewhere otherwise I'll kidnap them and steal $5000 from them? How much jail time would I receive for that? It's hard to say. My point is that attempting to justify all the actions of the state on the basis of law, rather than ethics, is a dangerous path to take.

Perhaps the guards will be charged with accessory to murder? Aw, who am I kidding? Of course not! :laugh3:

I confess that generally speaking, I don't like "black people music". Does that make me a musical racist?

Hey Matt, let's discuss politics and economics. Then let's make out. ;)

Demetri Martin, one of my favorite stand-up comedians:

I dunno who this guy is, but wow... I never thought someone could pull off a kilt, but he manages to do it.

Nick, great post. If you want to understand economics, you should remember this basic fact: prices are signals. Some people think prices are arbitrary. These people view the world in a way that emphasizes the "should". They say, "College should cost less." "Medical care should be free for everyone." "Young people shouldn't make a lot of money." "My retirement account should get bigger every year." "Interest rates should be lower." etc. If you use the government to skew price signals, the economy doesn't work properly - prices of goods/services go up instead of down.

BTW, I can explain in more detail precisely why the bubble pops, and why your friends end up losing their jobs (downsizing) when I return later tonight. But reading the above post can give you the jist of how an economy works. When there is a Federal Reserve, money isn't real. It's imaginary, because it can be printed. When there is a gold standard (or any commodity based money-supply that can't be manipulated by governments), money is real. Interest rates are accurate and the economy is healthy.