The Gaming Den

Finally, super-secret ways to detect inflation.

Doom wrote:Finally, super-secret ways to detect inflation.

Seriously? If you aren't smart enough to realize the connection between unrest in the Middle East and fuel prices and understand how fuel prices affect food prices, then you shouldn't be listened to at all.

Only a moron thinks it's because of inflation. I know he's trying to be funny, but he's fundamentally wrong.

Again: "Changes in price due to supply and demand" or "Stupid market speculation gone wild" is different from "inflation"

Yes, it is.

I thought the article was intended entirely as a joke.

DSMatticus wrote:Well, tzor, that doesn't actually fix the problem - you can interchange corporation with a single really rich asshole, and any problems corporations cause can be caused by that single really rich asshole.

And you can only line up that guy and shoot him if he's violated some law/regulation, but libertarians by definition don't like laws/regulations that restrict the right to property. And that really rich a-hole really does have an advantage at every financial dealing he comes into, because he has more wealth to throw around.

There is always a problem with overgeneralization. I think it would be fair for most libertarians to agree to that your right to property ends when it interferes with someone else's right to property, because their right to property is just as valid as your own. At one level, one can handle this on the civil court, but at a higher level, one can handle it at a criminial court. I don't think any libertarian would make highway robbery not a crime because it is just a matter of private property.

The biggest problem is that when everything becomes a monetary question it becomes a cost benefit analysis. What is the "cost" of the fine (assuming I get caught) vs. what is the benefit that I get out of it. In the end it is often more economically logical to violate the law and pay the fine because the cost never exceeds the benefit, even when there is 100% compliancce, which never happens.

Hauling someone's ass to jail, on the other hand, turns off the cost benefit completely, because jail sucks, even in club fed. There is still the compliance factor, you may do it if you don't think you will get caught.

Consider a HOV lane. Illegally crossing the HOV lane divider results in a fine and/or points. The fine is ... whatever. The points means you could loose your licence to drive! (Mind you there is little compliance meaning most people think they can get away with it and naturally they do!)

There is one case for regulations for the sake of regulations (like what light bulbs to use) and getting away with murder (literally) for a small fine. The former would cause most libertarians to go into a rage about government regulation. The later would (I believe) cause even the strongest libertarian to argue for the fiar application of the rule of law.

Oh, I'm totally for non-financial punishments (and a libertarian society can have them). The problem is the set of things libertarians can punish, financially or otherwise, and still be libertarian is very small. Me charging ridiculously high prices for a service I provide does not violate your right to property, because you have absolutely no right to expect my services at a given rate. If society were to prevent me from setting my own arbitrary rates for the services I provide, they would be restricting MY right to property. And that's not very libertarian.

And therein lies the problem. There are going to be financial dealings where one individual has a huge advantage, and in his own self-interest, he will leverage that huge advantage to take the other party for the most profit possible. Propagate this over time and large populations, and the end result is a wealth divide so huge you might as well be in feudalism, it's just the Divine Right of the Rich instead of kings.

Exactly...good thing our current system makes that sort of thing totally impossible

Doom, feel free to find the quote where I said our system was good. I'm incredibly unhappy with the United States economic system, and so should everyone be after 2008. It's broke, and we need to fix it (and we had the chance, and we didn't even try - just handed out money, no strings attached).

I'm just pointing out that a libertarian system has the exact same problems, to the extreme and with no mechanism of trying to correct them except to stop being libertarian. Which is a hilarious contradiction.

Well, yes, it theoretically might have the exact same problems, at no greater extreme, and, of course, while the theoretical problems might theoretically be as extreme and theoretically under the two previous two highly questionable assumptions might theoretically might have no correction method other than to collapse the system, the current system definitely has no correction method beyond collapse.

The very concept of a "fair market" or of "free contracts" is completely absurd and any economic theory or reform suggestion which requires such is laughable and in no way serious. The reality is that people have wants and needs, which means that people who produce things that others need to live are in a position to use lethal extortion to get the things they want simply by refusing to trade until their demands are met in full. The only way to make that "fair" would be to allow people to make counter offers of physical violence. And of course, that isn't fair either, because weaponry and strength are not equally distributed.

The only way to make a market even vaguely approach being fair would be to guaranty everyone their basic needs, have full governmental oversight on all transactions to provide a reasonable facsimile of perfect information and eliminate the fear of fraud, and ensure that everyone had a fair distribution of wealth to begin with by whatever criteria your culture judges things fair. In short, a market would only even come slightly close to being fair after we started living in a fantasy communist utopia that didn't actually need the market to distribute needed goods and services.

Talking about what capitalism would be like if markets were fair is like talking about what war would be like if both sides agreed to abide by the rules of laser tag. It's completely meaningless from the standpoint of serious discussion about how the real world has ever or will ever operate.

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Now back to inflation. Here are the questions you should ask yourself:

• First, do you see any sign that workers are about to (or are even able to) demand higher wages to compensate for the higher prices of gas and food?
• Second, do you any sign that employers are getting ready to make more generous wage offers?
• Third, have you heard anything about companies feeling that they have room to raise prices by substantially more than the rise in their raw material costs?

The answer to all those questions is no. Which means that there is no wage-price spiral by any previously accepted definition of the term. If you think that relatively high commodity prices (which remain relatively high even through the metals crash of last week) are going to lead to inflation by some other system than the standard wage-price spiral, you need to explain what that system actually is. What model are you using to predict inflation that doesn't involve a hot labor market where workers can expect higher wages after contract negotiations?

-Username17

I certainly agree it's quite possible, likely even, that libertarianism would end up as disastrously as everything else...since it's never been tried (beyond an arguable case in Iceland centuries ago), it's all theory, and trying something that we don't think will work might just be worse than actually doing something we know doesn't work.

It's worth nothing that after the 'crash' in silver, it's now up only 90% over the last 12 months.

Your question method regarding would only work if the concept of 'stagflation' did not exist, or cannot possibly happen. Are you sure there's no such thing as prices increasing without wages/salaries increasing? This simply putting the cart before the horse.. Keep in mind always, the "funny money" from the Fed doesn't go into the common man (or the small business owner's) hands first, they only get it after it's been devalued.

Lots of things are 'all theory,' but in light of the fact that we aren't idiots, we're fully capable of analyzing them. I've never seen anyone sit down and play the pirate game, but I totally know the optimum solution. And while the real world is never as neat as mathematical analysis, substantial evidence and analysis is a perfectly fine replacement for hard proof.

And in light of the fact that everytime we move towards a free market, things get worse, not better... and the regulations we have developed naturally over time as responses to problems with a 'free-er market...' Really, nobody should expect a free market to do anything but screw you over.

Doom wrote:Your question method regarding would only work if the concept of 'stagflation' did not exist, or cannot possibly happen

Stagflation is a real thing. But it has a wage price spiral in addition to high unemployment. It actually feeds on each other. Hiring or even keeping a worker costs increasing amounts of nominal dollars over time because of the wage-price-spiral. And that makes expanding work forces difficult even when opportunities for investment exist.

You don't get to wave stagflation around like it explains away anything. Where is the wage price spiral? If there isn't one, what other mechanism for inflation do you believe exists?

-Username17

DSMatticus wrote: And in light of the fact that everytime we move towards a free market, things get worse, not better...

Weird. Weren't you the same guy I was talking to a few days back, that disregarded all empirical evidence for how bad paper currency is, since such evidence doesn't prove what'll happen the next time?

And now you're saying libertarianism is bad because supposedly things get worse every time freedom is tried. I am curious, when did we 'move towards a free market' and things get worse, not that empirical evidence is something you normally consider anyway? Talk about cognitive disconnect.

FrankTrollman wrote: You don't get to wave stagflation around like it explains away anything. Where is the wage price spiral? If there isn't one, what other mechanism for inflation do you believe exists?

-Username17

The spiral is mostly in federal/state employment. Their wages have been shooting up quite nicely over the decades, and seeing as how such employment represents a good chunk of the population, it's enough.

Doom wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: You don't get to wave stagflation around like it explains away anything. Where is the wage price spiral? If there isn't one, what other mechanism for inflation do you believe exists?

-Username17

The spiral is mostly in federal/state employment. Their wages have been shooting up quite nicely over the decades, and seeing as how such employment represents a good chunk of the population, it's enough.

Do you have any data that isn't spoon fed to you by right wing conspiracy theorists? For fuck's sake, a wage hike "a few decades ago" doesn't do fuck all to inflation levels now. You know that. You have to know that. Everyone knows you know that. Wage hikes in the Carter administration led to inflation in the Carter administration. They don't change price level rates of change now. As for government workers, let's look at how their compensation has actually been performing:



So try again. Where is the inflation coming from now that you apparently think exists, and what is your model for how it causing inflation? Because when we look at actual public employees, they aren't having a wage spiral either.

-Username17

Doom wrote:I certainly agree it's quite possible, likely even, that libertarianism would end up as disastrously as everything else...since it's never been tried (beyond an arguable case in Iceland centuries ago), it's all theory, and trying something that we don't think will work might just be worse than actually doing something we know doesn't work.

I've never bought that libertarianism has never been tried. Every time you have a government collapse you should get something like a free market, because without a government you can't have government intervention. Similarly with the drug trade, the government isn't intervening in the way it wants too so the drug market is largely free.

Notice, both a failed state and a drug market see a lot of violence, that is caused by actors in the system trying to increase their power through the most expedient means possible. If a party in a failed state attains enough power they form a government, if a drug cartel gets enough power they subvert and take over the government. From this can't we assume that from any libertarian or anarchy-capatalist system will emerge a new government? If that's true than libertarianism is doomed to failure for ever and ever, because it will create its anathema.

We've had 3-5 years of wage stagnation, and increased prices for everything. Part of it is a hike in gas prices, hikes in gas prices raise the prices on pretty much /everything/ The US uses Trucks for transporting most goods, the US does most of it's agriculture in California, New Jersey, Florida, and Texas (for fruits and vegetables) and in the Midwest for Cattle and Grain. We ship everything across the US back and forth like crazy monkeys.

Part of it is simple greed, prices go up by X, when they come back down, they go down to Y which is usually higher than they were before because people are trying to edge out some extra money.

What we have right now isn't an inflation, it's a continuous economic shift. The middle class and poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting stupidly richer. Good Quality stuff is costing a premium, and crappy health debilitating stuff is super cheap.

All the while, the Republicans are playing the Rich people being Richer is good for the US song, and the Democrats are sitting around with their fingers up their asses.

Frank, um, you do note that chart you showed does, indeed, have workers being paid MORE than the alleged inflation rate by the BLS, for every single year except the current (which isn't over yet). Using your own argument, pay should drop during a deflation...and yet, still seeing increases.

I again point out: you can't have every single number being over the official numbers, and assume some sort of 'average' is how you get to the official numbers.

So, yeah, I guess that shows the point well enough, thanks for the chart.

Your chart also only shows STATE (and local, which means in addidtion to the chart not showing your point, it still can't refute mine), you're missing the key: the feds own the printing presses, not the states. Note federal pay has had wonderful pay increases, even as the peons in the lower governmnet 'only' get raises over the official inflation rate:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... ries_N.htm

This doesn't even begin to note CEO pay that has skyrocketed (admittedly, a tiny proportion, significantly only due to the extreme amounts being considered).

And, seriously, what right-wing site are you talking about? I'm going to *guess* Fox News has a site? I've never even checked. Are CNN and MSN right-wing now?

And Juton: there's *no way* you can assert the drug market is mostly free, certainly not compared to anything else. Drugs are ridiculously regulated to extreme levels (and a great number of drugs are 'illegal', which is also a form of regulation). Go try to make and sell hot dogs, or chairs, or jewelry; you'll have to pay a great number of bribes, er, fees to the government to allow it to happen long term, but you can get away with it for a while...when you do get caught, it'll mostly just be a larger bribe, er, fine or two.

Try to make and sell your own aspirin? Not even remotely possible, you'll be tossed in a hole very quickly the moment you're discovered, even if your aspirin is identical in form to anyone else's aspirin, and it'll be years before your legal troubles are resolved.

Juton wrote:Notice, both a failed state and a drug market see a lot of violence, that is caused by actors in the system trying to increase their power through the most expedient means possible. If a party in a failed state attains enough power they form a government, if a drug cartel gets enough power they subvert and take over the government. From this can't we assume that from any libertarian or anarchy-capatalist system will emerge a new government? If that's true than libertarianism is doomed to failure for ever and ever, because it will create its anathema.

Anarchy, I could see, for sure. Libertarianism, maybe. The big difference is that libertarians believe the government should be strong enough to protect people's rights. This would probably make them strong enough to fend off a cartel, but maybe not.

Libertarianism doesn't need to fail militarily to just plain fail. A libertarian government can muster the power up to enforce its citizens rights (police, military, whatever), and it can protect people from being bossed around at gunpoint. What it refuses to do, as a stated goal of libertarianism, is protect people from being bossed around financially. And big corporations always have an advantage at the negotiation table. Libertarianism doesn't have to get taken over militarily, it gets taken over financially, where a handful of very wealthy individuals eventually control the entire economy.

Doom wrote:Weird. Weren't you the same guy I was talking to a few days back, that disregarded all empirical evidence for how bad paper currency is...

You didn't provide any evidence paper currency was bad. You provided evidence that economies fail. You failed to establish any causal link besides, "look over here, now look over here. These two things must be related, because they happened close to eachother." Not to mention, I flat-out explained the link between inflation and economic collapse, such that it's very clear that inflation is not the disease, it's more of a... treatment you can overdose on.

I can also flat out tell you the mechanic, the actual honest to god mechanics, by which libertarianism fails. There's no, "look at these things, they SEEM closely related." I don't have to handwave it into existence because it "sounds right to me."

Well, yes, except for the evidence, there is no evidence, I grant you that. I just don't think you realize how powerful your conditioning is to simply not see what you don't wish to see. I'm sure none of these countries even exist on your world. You'll note many of these countries have non-fail economies, it's the paper currency that has failed.

Granted, you'll insist none of those countries exist, either, but when were you going to give me that example of gold becoming worthless, again? I'm just going to keep asking over and over and over and over again until it gets through to you that you have nothing beyond bluster.

Or, for fuck's sake, finally come up with something. I'd love a time and place where a loaf bread goes for 5,000 pounds of gold.

it gets taken over financially, where a handful of very wealthy individuals eventually control the entire economy.

And where's your evidence again, especially against that (non) standard you use where no evidence counts?

I have to oh wow, again at this:

"look over here, now look over here. These two things must be related, because they happened close to eachother."

Being close IS a relationship...in typical muddied thinking, you're confusing this with the belief that there must be a causal relationship.

Certainly, there might have been an occasion where it was just a coincidence of paper falling from the sky...but I don't see how a 100 trillion dollar note can happen without someone printing a 100 trillion dollar note. It's not nearly as random as you think, although, as someone else noted, perhaps the tooth fairy creates them. The system can only exist as long as people believe in it, after all. Causal relationship, or the tooth fairy? I concede it's just a matter of belief.

Even though the tooth fairy seems to work for you, it doesn't really matter which is cause and which is effect: the end result, worthlessness, is inevitable.

Not to mention, I flat-out explained the link between inflation and economic collapse, such that it's very clear that inflation is not the disease, it's more of a... treatment you can overdose on.

Yes, your explanation was the two things sort of happen at the same time, so they must be related. You've just been trained to believe it's a good thing, instead of bad (although, not that you'd put your money where your mouth is) that the elderly, the children, everyone with change in their pocket, everyone with a bank account should be sacrificed so that we have a (so-called) "strong economy". It's an unnecessary treatment that benefits those with the presses at the expense of those that don't have them.

Increase the supply of funny money, and the value drops. I just don't understand how 'supply and demand' concepts are no longer covered in high school.

Again, though, your thinking in this way is by design. There's no good reason to believe that human beings should be sacrificed for 'a strong economy', even if that result were true. Just as the Aztec rulers had no problem with human sacrifice for the good of the economy, and the people went along because there were told of no other way, so too do our rulers 'sacrifice' as well, and the people have been told it is the only way, and been trained not to consider other ways as possible.

But, I know this will get through. Atheists tend to know more about other religions than 'true believers', it's the same principle here. There are other things to believe in besides human sacrifice, honest.

Doom wrote:Well, yes, except for the evidence, there is no evidence, I grant you that. I just don't think you realize how powerful your conditioning is to simply not see what you don't wish to see. I'm sure none of these countries even exist on your world. You'll note many of these countries have non-fail economies, it's the paper currency that has failed.

First and foremost, you bring up a number of crap countries. It doesn't matter what the economy is like, a crap ruller can fuck up any nation guarenteed. In this manner, fiat currency is a great tool to allow a crap ruller to fuck up his nation. But it is only one arrow in his quiver of total fail.

The illusion that you can create a "hidden tax" to fund the government by printing more money has temped the good and the poor leader alike. ABraham Lincoln used fiat currency to help pay for the civil war. It caused the complete collpase of weak governments in Germany, France and Argentina. But it is really a fault of fiat currency or a fault of "oh look ... a free lunch."

But at least look on the bright side. None of these countries went off raping and pillaging because their government needed more revenue.

You're right, that's not much of a bright side ... nevermind.

I'm a little reluctant to call so many countries 'crap', but you're right, they're not huge (although Vietnam at one point was worth the US going to war over, and Iran's not exactly being ignored by us). Those are just *current* countries, and it's just a top 10 list (the list of all would basically be all countries with fiat currencies). History is filled with disastrous paper currencies.

As you noted, crap rulers can trivially destroy their nation any number of ways, and I certainly can't argue with that...but there's no advantage to giving such a ruler yet another way to do it. Knowing that every ruler will do it to some extent, and at some point inevitably a ruler or group of rulers will abuse it to destruction, makes it madness to have faith in such a way of doing things.

But when you train the children when they're young enough, they'll believe anything, I guess.