Cars & China--God Help Us



Tom Kunich wrote:
> Richard Adams <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
>
>>gwhite wrote:
>>
>>>It is not in the general welfare of the United States,
>>>really its citizens, to make it a socialist state.
>>
>>That's just the Preamble, not the actual articles, i.e.
>>Law. I don't recall any precedent establishing supreme
>>court cases over 'general welfare' in the Preamble.
>>
>>And that diatribe which was snipped was rubbish.
>>Democracy is inherently social, we band together for
>>create a government, laws and enforcement. If 'we the
>>people' elect to have Social Security that's our
>>perogative and wiser people than you have learned not to
>>touch the 'third rail.'
>
>
> I suggest that all of our government is trying to balance
> the one against the other. You both have good points.

I once considered myself republican, or republican-
sympathetic. I was quite put off by the difference between
the great speaches of Reagan and how things actually
played out on the homefront and international stage. Some
good, but too much not good. I shifted my allegiance to
nobody in particular, trying to choose best candidates
based upon track record and results. Problem is, there's
damn few good ones, though I thought Clinton was doing a
pretty decent job.

I felt neither party had the upper hand on social programs,
particularly using elements as bargaining chips for votes.
The boldest move was the Clintons Universal Healthcare bid,
which failed, but quite likely for all the wrong reasons.
I'm middle class and am surrounded by others, futher down
the ladder than myself and healthcare is getting
monsterously expensive, particularly for families. Expect
that issue to be revisted again prior to the election.
Doctors aren't getting rich on this either.

I was a bit taken back when I was on vacation, years ago,
to Fayetteville, WV. A beautiful back woods town in
mountains on the New River Gorge, near the famous bridge. I
met a man who flew people over the gorge for a mere $5 (for
$7 he'd take you all the way up the river to Thurmond) a
bargain of epic proportions in the 90's. Frank served the
military as a pioneer aviator and trainer, now advanced in
his golden years (and sporting a pacemaker) he entertained
tourists, ran a makeshift museum, gave away kittens to good
homes and sold a couple books of his collected writings (It
Is This Way With Men Who Fly; West Virginia: State of
Confusion.) If you had time to spare and were willing to
chat you found yourself with a Real Republican, one of a
vanishing breed. He called Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan,
George Bush and the lot a bunch of hijackers who took the
party in directions it had no business going. You couldn't
tell the difference between the two parties and they were
simply in it for themselves. Frank and a handfull of old
republicans still inhabited the hills of West Virginia at
the time, but they would have nothing to do with politics
anymore, voting was a young man's game and gamble. If
you're interested in aviation history and/or West Virginia
politics, I recommend obtaining copies of his books. State
of Confusion may be more difficult to obtain as I have
found no reference for it on the web, though the other book
appears on Amazon at times.

As years go by I find myself more in agreement with Frank.
Wherever he is, I wish him well.
 
In article <40C94950.E44F7EFE@hocuspocus_ti.com>,
gwhite <gwhite@hocuspocus_ti.com> wrote:

> Richard Adams wrote:
> >
> > Sam wrote:
>
> > > The US Constitution says nothing about providing
> > > cradle to grave care.
> >
> > Perhaps you're not familiar with the 'General Welfare'
> > clause which has been used for a great many things. From
> > Article 1:
> >
> > Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and
> > collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the
> > debts and provide for the common defense and general
> > welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts
> > and excises shall be uniform throughout the United
> > States;
>
> It is not in the general welfare of the United States,
> really its citizens, to make it a socialist state.
>
> Maybe you are unfamiliar with this:
>
> "We the people of the United States, in order to form a
> more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
> tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
> general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
> ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
> Constitution for the United States of America."
>
> Socialism is fundamentally anti-liberty (anti-freedom). It
> is so by _design_. Socialism destroys rather than secures
> the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

(snipper)

Greg, I remember you citing Friedman at least once
previously (maybe more, I'll admit that I didn't
check that just now). I was wondering what you
thought of Keynes?

--
tanx, Howard

"Copper will never be gold" Shellac

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 
Howard Kveck wrote:
>

> Greg, I remember you citing Friedman at least once
> previously (maybe more, I'll admit that I didn't check
> that just now). I was wondering what you thought of
> Keynes?

Basically, I am not myself remotely qualified to talk about
it -- but I would say from my reading -- Hayek and Friedman
themselves are not at all complimentary of Keynes. To my
knowledge, Keynes did not write a popular text in political
economy (for average people like me), like Hayek and
Friedman have done.

From http://www.iedm.org/library/crowler_en.html START QUOTE

But it was Keynes's intellectual dilettantism that most
appalled Hayek. When Keynes wrote A Treatise on Money in
1930, Hayek spent a full year carefully analyzing it and
then wrote a devastating review. At their next meeting,
Hayek was outraged when Keynes airily said that he agreed
with Hayek, but it was all beside the point because he
had long since changed his mind in any case. Hayek always
regretted that this incident led him to neglect replying
to Keynes's next book, because it swept all before it,
and by the time that Hayek was alive to the danger, it
was too late.

Keynes's 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money became the bible of a whole new generation of
economists, first in the universities, and later in
governments around the world. The Keynesians, as they came
to be known, shared Keynes's own unshakable belief in the
ability of clever people, like himself, to smooth out
capitalism's cycles of boom and bust by manipulating the
level of demand in a nation's economy, through, for example,
inflationary monetary expansion and large public works
programs. Such vigorous actions appealed to a world already
in the grips of a devastating depression — far more than the
"do-nothing" non-interventionist economics of the likes of
Robbins and Hayek, who counselled letting the economy's self-
corrective mechanisms do their work. To those concerned
about the inflationary consequences of his policies, Keynes
breezily asserted that inflation was the hallmark of rising
civilizations.

In the very early days of Keynes's apotheosis, Hayek was
already explaining why this clever scheme too would come to
grief. He showed how the consistent pursuit of Keynesian
policies would, in the long run, produce simultaneous
inflation and economic stagnation and unemployment. The long
run was reached in the 1970s, when economists had to coin a
new word, stagflation, to describe a condition Keynesians
had always dismissed as impossible. Far from being a
"general theory," Hayek saw Keynes's book as nothing but a
superficial tract for the times.

END QUOTE

Of course, Friedman got even more famous during the
stagflation problems of the '70's. Note the preceding was
not Hayek, it was someone talking about Hayek (I thought it
was a good essay). Consider that, but I am not surprised by
the characterization.

From http://www.sbe.csuhayward.edu/~sbesc/frlect.html
START QUOTE

Professor Friedman was the founder, and chief proponent of
the Chicago School of monetary economics aka., monetarism.
I can recall during the 1960s that the great debate in
macroeconomics, set off by Friedman & Schwartz' monumental
Monetary History of the U.S., was between the Keynesians
and the Monetarists. Which was more stable: the Keynesian
multiplier or, as Friedman would have it, the velocity of
circulation of money? Most economists today would agree
that Friedman and company had the better arguments and the
better evidence.

END QUOTE

The article goes on with Milton himself speaking. I have
noted some criticism in forums regarding Friedman's Hong
Kong example as a "perfectly free market." The critics say
it is not perfectly free. However, and the best I could
tell, Hong Kong was *relatively* free, thus the criticism
just "nicks the corners," as usual, and really does nothing
to bring down the essence of the argument. Krugman calls
this "Friedman cutting corners." Others call it cutting to
the chase. I especially liked this one in the article: "We
mislead ourselves if we think we are going to correct the
situation by electing the right people to government."

Krugman says that Keynesians took the lumps delivered by the
monetarists and stagflation, learned their lessons, and
became so-called New Keynesians. Krugman is not the least
bit impartial (I think his NYT articles are stupid, but have
three of his books and do like them). I don't really know,
but I think the Gov (fiscal policy) and the Fed (monetary
policy) are still Keynesian to a large extent. After all,
when things go bad for a week the dopey electorate screams
"do something!," and is ready to roast whomever happens to
be in office unless they "do something!, even if it is
wrong!" I perceive that folks often want short term "fixes,"
so maybe Keynes is right that "we'll all be dead in the long
run" because our short term stupidty kills us for the long
run. I somehow think he never put it quite like that. ;-)

It has been so long since I took a intro college econ class,
I'm getting frustrated with my lack of basic nuts and bolts
technical background (very rusty). I order coffee and I get
oatmeal. I'm hoping to squeeze in a macro refresher soon.

If Econ was a fantasy league like basball, Milt and Fred
would be on my team. I traded Paul K. because he had poor
off-the-field behavior, despite his obvious game talent. And
I don't believe that sucker _walked_ or _rode a bike_ to the
top of that mountain:
http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/VacationingWithEnemy.html

Start/End essay paragraphs from Pressman's _Fifty Major
Economists_:

FRIEDRICH HAYEK (1899-1992)

Friedrich Hayek (pronounced HI-YACK) achieved
worldwide recognition as a cham- pion of the free
market and an opponent of government interference
with the right of individuals to engage in free
exchange through the market. His work makes a
strong case that individual choice, rather than
government decision-making, yields both economic
benefits (greater efficiency) and non-economic
benefits (greater liberty and freedom).

...

Hayek’s main contribution as an econo- mist has
been his arguments about the benefits of free
markets and the information provided by prices.
These arguments lead to the conclusion that
attempts to alter or control markets should be
opposed because they inevitably limit individual
freedom, reduce economic efficiency and lower
living standards. Markets, for Hayek, were self-
regulating devices that promote prosperity.
Government policy and other attempts to hinder
the workings of markets make us worse off
economically and reduce individual liberty.

MILTON FRIEDMAN (1912-)

The two main themes in the work of Fried- man are
that money matters and that free- dom matters.
Money matters because only changes in the money
supply can affect economic activity. Money also
matters be- cause inflation results from too much
money in the economy. Freedom matters because
economies run better when governments do not
attempt to control prices, exchange rates or entry
into professions. And freedom is also important as
an end in itself.

...

Milton Friedman is the rare economist who has
managed to span two very different worlds. On
the one hand, he is regarded a giant within the
economics profession, and is one of the two or
three most referenced and revered economic
figures in the twentieth century. This work has
stressed the impor- tance of money and the
importance of markets to improve economic well-
being. At the same time Friedman has written
voluminously for the general public. This work
has stressed the importance of indivi- dual decision-
making and freedom, and has made Friedman one of
the two or three best known and most recognized
economists of the late twentieth century.
 
Why the F do you post this to RBR? Idiots rule I guess.

-Ken

gwhite <gwhite@hocuspocus_ti.com> wrote in message
news:<40CE8BDB.69EF5B35@hocuspocus_ti.com>...
> Howard Kveck wrote:
> >
>
> > Greg, I remember you citing Friedman at least once
> > previously (maybe more, I'll admit that I didn't
> > check that just now). I was wondering what you
> > thought of Keynes?
>
>
> Basically, I am not myself remotely qualified to talk
> about it -- but I would say from my reading -- Hayek and
> Friedman themselves are not at all complimentary of
> Keynes. To my knowledge, Keynes did not write a popular
> text in political economy (for average people like me),
> like Hayek and Friedman have done.
>
>
> From http://www.iedm.org/library/crowler_en.html
> START QUOTE
>
> But it was Keynes's intellectual dilettantism that most
> appalled Hayek. When Keynes wrote A Treatise on Money in
> 1930, Hayek spent a full year carefully analyzing it and
> then wrote a devastating review. At their next meeting,
> Hayek was outraged when Keynes airily said that he agreed
> with Hayek, but it was all beside the point because he
> had long since changed his mind in any case. Hayek always
> regretted that this incident led him to neglect replying
> to Keynes's next book, because it swept all before it,
> and by the time that Hayek was alive to the danger, it
> was too late.
>
> Keynes's 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and
> Money became the bible of a whole new generation of
> economists, first in the universities, and later in
> governments around the world. The Keynesians, as they came
> to be known, shared Keynes's own unshakable belief in the
> ability of clever people, like himself, to

<8 million lines of **** SNIPPED
 
"K. J. Papai" wrote:
>
> Why the F do you post this to RBR? Idiots rule I guess.
>

I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!!!!!

LANCE WILL WIN 6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LANCE IS NOT ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LANCE IS TOO ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY ARE ALL ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY ARE NOT ALL ON DRUGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TYLER IS A BAD BIKE HANDLER!!!!!!!!!!!!

JAN'S PROBLEM IS IN HIS HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ZABEL IS NOT A SPRINTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GAG'S WAS ATTACKING THE BIKE, NOT THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KEN CARPENTER IS INNOCENT OF THE CHARGES AT
BURLINGAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**** OR GET OFF THE POT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM NOT A FRED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WILL SUE BIANCHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See? I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!!!!! I know what's going on here.

If you come to Santa Rosa tonight for the crit, I will
heckle you and paint vaginas on the road. So there.

Sincerely, The Bike Racing Fan
 
In article <40CE8BDB.69EF5B35@hocuspocus_ti.com>,
gwhite <gwhite@hocuspocus_ti.com> wrote:

> Howard Kveck wrote:
> >
>
> > Greg, I remember you citing Friedman at least once
> > previously (maybe more, I'll admit that I didn't
> > check that just now). I was wondering what you
> > thought of Keynes?
>
>
> Basically, I am not myself remotely qualified to talk
> about it -- but I would say from my reading -- Hayek and
> Friedman themselves are not at all complimentary of
> Keynes. To my knowledge, Keynes did not write a popular
> text in political economy (for average people like me),
> like Hayek and Friedman have done.

I'll keep this short (sorry, Ken!), but I suppose I'm
probably even less qualified than you. Whatever! My main
interest in the world of econ is my own economic world
(which should be described as "sub-nano econ"), but I do
end up reading a fair number of things econ related.

Anyway, the reason for bringing this up had to do with
the "socialism" comments. It does seem that monetary
policy is the generally accepted way of heading toward
full (or close-to) employment, with the occasional shot
in the arm via tax cuts thrown in. There is a point were
it doesn't really seem like that is actually doing the
job, so a slightly different approach might be in order.
From what I've been able to tell, the last roughly 1/5
of Keynes' General Theory goes into that, and what that
seemed to be is that if the government wants to see jobs
created, perhaps it ought to think about making some
jobs itself. Sort of give the laissez-faire market a bit
of a kick start. What that would actually constitute,
I'm not sure, but the idea does seem like it could stand
some thought.

You're right that Paul Krugman is not exactly impartial
in his NYT writing, but I do find that he makes a lot of
valid points, and I like his writing in general. He is a
pretty good speaker, too.

--
tanx, Howard

"Copper will never be gold" Shellac

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 

Similar threads

B
Replies
71
Views
4K
Road Cycling
Howard Kveck
H
S
Replies
7
Views
2K
Road Cycling
Brian Huntley
B