Resolving conflicts with the Republican party

[TopSecretBoiler]

1. I disagree that libertarianism is an extreme position. Extremism by definition is relative, so as one measure, let's compare remaining candidates in this year's race. If you added Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson into a debate with the most popular 5 mainstream candidates in this year's election, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Kasich, I guarantee Johnson's platform and views would appear average or possibly even below average on the "extreme scale" in that debate. And those 5 "mainstream" candidates are even TRYING to be somewhat moderate just to pivot towards center for the national election. Johnson knows he's not going to win, he's not pivoting at all from the same platform he governed from.

2. As I said before, it is not a goal of libertarianism to force equality. I said if it happens as a byproduct of policy (or lack of policy), then fine, but it's not a goal. Regarding libertarians "failing to recognize human failings", that presupposes a goal of forced equal outcomes, which I'm not even sure is a majority opinion/goal across Americans, or if it is, it's not by much. Regardless I would say that those in favor of more power in government fail to recognize many human failings as well, such as the inevitable corruption of power, the overestimation and overconfidence of our ability to control and predict economic outcomes and policy side effects, and an underestimation of the "horizon problem" where someone in office for X number of years kicks the can down the road for the next administration to solve.

People in government are also in aggregate pretty clueless about simple economics. Which is dangerous. For example they'll complain about rising college tuitions, and then propose to increase access to higher education and student loans. Well the rise in tuitions was the predictable outcome of that policy. Or they'll talk about how the middle class can no longer afford to buy a home, but then not be willing to cut the mortgage interest subsidy (among MANY other policies) which artificially raise the price of real estate. They either don't understand basic economics, or they neglect what they know for political expediency. I could list dozens of other examples, and it's not just the Legislative and Executive branches but also the Fed as well.

3. I've never been a fan of comparisons to the 1800s for economics...it's just too different of a world to compare IMO, in almost every way imaginable that would matter for decent comparative analysis. Either way and most importantly I'd argue strongly that the post-war stability to which you're referring is completely illusory. It was in fact simply DEBT that caused that growth and debt that also stabilized the ups and downs (as debt can serve as a short-term stabilizer despite being a long-term destabilizer).

Simple illustration: from 1974 to 2014, all facets of the U.S. (governments/businesses/individuals) took on $58 trillion in new debt, which was a 4.4%/year compounded growth rate increase in debt (not counting inflation, which was another 4.13% during that period...so nominal debt growth was 8.53%/year). During the same 40-year span, inflation-adjusted GDP growth rate was only 2.1%. So JUST TO ACHIEVE 2.1% real GDP growth rate, it took 4.4% of real DEBT growth each year!!! This was factually simply debt-fueled growth. I don't have the pre-1974 numbers in front of me but I will see how that analysis looks post-1937 as well, for a longer-term view, since you had mentioned 80 years. I'd be surprised if it looked much different. Debt can solve a LOT of problems even over several decades, but it can't keep going like this. For a preview, look at Japan--within 5 to 10 years or sooner Japan could be the economic story of the 21st century, and not in a good way.

4. Safety regulation and so forth is not a hot-button issue for me, and as I said before it's a point I'm willing to concede just because I think there are a lot bigger fish to fry. But the point isn't that businesses would police themselves, it's that in a lot of non-critical cases (I'm not talking about nuclear power here), it doesn't take a government entity to carry out the ratings work. This is true today in many industries of course. And again industry has pretty much successfully accomplished "regulatory capture" already anyway. The industries that are getting regulated are often the ones who are writing new regulatory laws, government experts jump into industry and vice-versa, etc.

5. I'm actually not assuming anything about me or anyone else being racist or not racist. I haven't even stated my race, sexual orientation, etc.. I just don't fundamentally believe that a privately funded business should be restricted from hiring or serving a certain class. A publicly funded one should definitely be restricted as such. Regardless I personally doubt too many of these enclaves would arise, any more than they aren't already here today despite government attempts to prohibit them. But even if they are racist and they survive and flourish despite that, that's their business (literally and figuratively), not mine. And as a potential employee or a potential customer, I can choose another business that wants to serve or employ me. In fact if someone wants to discriminate against me it's just as well that they do so in a more explicit way so that I'll realize that's exactly what's happening. Doing it implicitly can be done today.

I think 3 is completely wrong. There's a lot of data out there that says otherwise. First of all, the debt wasn't gained in a linear fashion. It started a rather serious uptick in the 80's and was blown out the water by obama. Probably more important is to look at debt as a percentage of gdp. Post ww2 it was extremely low (comparatively speaking). There was no competition from the outside world to drive wages down or compete with american goods. You can't just say that's illusory. It's most certainly very real. In 1950 21,000 cars were imported. In 1986, over 4 million cars were imported.
And to the original number 3, over regulation certainly contributed to the collapse. The government was suing banks to force them to issue sketchy loans. The banks didn't want those loans on their books, so they packaged them up and dumped them off on sallie mae. So how is that not over regulation? Seems quite clear to me. But I was working in the banking industry at the time and saw this first hand. I realize not everyone was. Our bad debt percentages and delinquencies were through the roof.

 

[qazplm]

1. I disagree that libertarianism is an extreme position. Extremism by definition is relative, so as one measure, let's compare remaining candidates in this year's race. If you added Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson into a debate with the most popular 5 mainstream candidates in this year's election, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Cruz and Kasich, I guarantee Johnson's platform and views would appear average or possibly even below average on the "extreme scale" in that debate. And those 5 "mainstream" candidates are even TRYING to be somewhat moderate just to pivot towards center for the national election. Johnson knows he's not going to win, he's not pivoting at all from the same platform he governed from.

2. As I said before, it is not a goal of libertarianism to force equality. I said if it happens as a byproduct of policy (or lack of policy), then fine, but it's not a goal. Regarding libertarians "failing to recognize human failings", that presupposes a goal of forced equal outcomes, which I'm not even sure is a majority opinion/goal across Americans, or if it is, it's not by much. Regardless I would say that those in favor of more power in government fail to recognize many human failings as well, such as the inevitable corruption of power, the overestimation and overconfidence of our ability to control and predict economic outcomes and policy side effects, and an underestimation of the "horizon problem" where someone in office for X number of years kicks the can down the road for the next administration to solve.

People in government are also in aggregate pretty clueless about simple economics. Which is dangerous. For example they'll complain about rising college tuitions, and then propose to increase access to higher education and student loans. Well the rise in tuitions was the predictable outcome of that policy. Or they'll talk about how the middle class can no longer afford to buy a home, but then not be willing to cut the mortgage interest subsidy (among MANY other policies) which artificially raise the price of real estate. They either don't understand basic economics, or they neglect what they know for political expediency. I could list dozens of other examples, and it's not just the Legislative and Executive branches but also the Fed as well.

3. I've never been a fan of comparisons to the 1800s for economics...it's just too different of a world to compare IMO, in almost every way imaginable that would matter for decent comparative analysis. Either way and most importantly I'd argue strongly that the post-war stability to which you're referring is completely illusory. It was in fact simply DEBT that caused that growth and debt that also stabilized the ups and downs (as debt can serve as a short-term stabilizer despite being a long-term destabilizer).

Simple illustration: from 1974 to 2014, all facets of the U.S. (governments/businesses/individuals) took on $58 trillion in new debt, which was a 4.4%/year compounded growth rate increase in debt (not counting inflation, which was another 4.13% during that period...so nominal debt growth was 8.53%/year). During the same 40-year span, inflation-adjusted GDP growth rate was only 2.1%. So JUST TO ACHIEVE 2.1% real GDP growth rate, it took 4.4% of real DEBT growth each year!!! This was factually simply debt-fueled growth. I don't have the pre-1974 numbers in front of me but I will see how that analysis looks post-1937 as well, for a longer-term view, since you had mentioned 80 years. I'd be surprised if it looked much different. Debt can solve a LOT of problems even over several decades, but it can't keep going like this. For a preview, look at Japan--within 5 to 10 years or sooner Japan could be the economic story of the 21st century, and not in a good way.

4. Safety regulation and so forth is not a hot-button issue for me, and as I said before it's a point I'm willing to concede just because I think there are a lot bigger fish to fry. But the point isn't that businesses would police themselves, it's that in a lot of non-critical cases (I'm not talking about nuclear power here), it doesn't take a government entity to carry out the ratings work. This is true today in many industries of course. And again industry has pretty much successfully accomplished "regulatory capture" already anyway. The industries that are getting regulated are often the ones who are writing new regulatory laws, government experts jump into industry and vice-versa, etc.

5. I'm actually not assuming anything about me or anyone else being racist or not racist. I haven't even stated my race, sexual orientation, etc.. I just don't fundamentally believe that a privately funded business should be restricted from hiring or serving a certain class. A publicly funded one should definitely be restricted as such. Regardless I personally doubt too many of these enclaves would arise, any more than they aren't already here today despite government attempts to prohibit them. But even if they are racist and they survive and flourish despite that, that's their business (literally and figuratively), not mine. And as a potential employee or a potential customer, I can choose another business that wants to serve or employ me. In fact if someone wants to discriminate against me it's just as well that they do so in a more explicit way so that I'll realize that's exactly what's happening. Doing it implicitly can be done today.

1. Well of course you do. If you thought it extreme, I'm guessing you wouldn't be one. Gary Johnson was called "the original Tea Party candidate." I'm guessing most folks would consider that evidence of some extreme positions. When I see his profile, yep, he takes all the far right positions on the economy, and all the far left positions on social issues. Thus, both sides would see him extreme on half his positions, and the middle would see him extreme on everything.

2. The rise in tuition is also a predictable outcome of a rising population (i.e. increased demand) + inflation. That's basic economics as well is it not? So separate out for me what part was that, and what part was increased tuition assistance/loans?

You'll have to explain to me how a byproduct of doing nothing is something. That sounds a lot to me like trickle down economics logic (if we stop taxing business and just get out of the way, they will make a ton of money and a "byproduct" of that will be that everyone benefits). Of course, we know that didn't happen. Why? Because the function of business is not to make everyone else's lives better, it's to make money and satisfy their shareholders while cutting expenses (including things like wages and benefits) as much as they can get away with.

I feel like the underwear gnomes:

1. Do nothing.
2. ????
3. Profit.

3. Whenever someone says there is ONE thing that caused something economically speaking in a nation as complicated as the US I don't know how to respond to that politely.

You've selected a pretty arbitrary time slice that includes:

1. the economic malaise of the last half of the 70s through to the end of the 82 recession (which had little to do with debt and a lot to do with the oil crises)
2. the Great Recession of 08 which again didn't have anything to do with GOVERNMENT debt

Why not start in 83? Or end in 07? Or start in 46? Or 51? You're missing a ton of boom years in the 50s and 60s.

What caused our post-war growth? A whole host of things:

1. Increased gov spending based on the war significantly aided industry and manufacturing which led to a ton of well-paying jobs (it also led to a burst of innovation which itself leads to new jobs).
2. The heavy investment in infrastructure (e.g. national highway system) that happened in the 30s, 40s, and 50s helped businesses and industry move their products more quickly and efficiently
3. Women and minorities in the workplace increased significantly, discrimination began it's decline, business had a larger pool of both skilled workers and people who could afford to buy their stuff
4. The beginnings of globalization created new markets for our businesses to sell to
5. The internet certainly helped as well by making it even easier to start and maintain a profitable business

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other things. So it wasn't just debt.

Furthermore, our Debt to GDP ratio isn't much different than Germany's. There are much worse off economies that have lower debt to GDP, and a couple better ones that have a higher one. No one suggests debt doesn't matter at all, but no it isn't everything either.

4. If gov didn't do the inspecting and the rating, then you'd place it on the consumer to figure it out. Because business A would just hire business B to do their rating. Now, is business B a legit rating company that calls it like it is, or is it a sham company that makes it up to satisfy it's clients? Good luck figuring that one out before something bad happens consumer.

5. It's great if you have money and the means to avoid those racist business and can take your money elsewhere. I think you severely overestimate the ability of the working poor to simply pick up and move to a better place, find a new job at said better, less racist place. There are going to be a ton of people reduced to second-class citizenship in your libertarian world because there are only a handful of business and none of them sell to "those people" or they redline them to make housing more expensive.

We've already DONE this. We had a time when businesses had no rules about race or any other preference, we already KNOW what the results would be and how it would affect certain populations. It's as if you missed the first half of the 20th century. Heck, redlining in loans and renting STILL goes on today even with the rules. But WAY less than it did without those rules.

You'd segregate this country again even more than it is now with black and hispanic and white areas of town with whites getting preferential loan and bank treatment.

I would prefer that you not be discriminated against at all, implicitly or explicitly when it comes to basic things like loans, hiring, firing, and goods and services. Call me crazy.

 

[terminalg92]

I think 3 is completely wrong. There's a lot of data out there that says otherwise. First of all, the debt wasn't gained in a linear fashion. It started a rather serious uptick in the 80's and was blown out the water by obama. Probably more important is to look at debt as a percentage of gdp. Post ww2 it was extremely low (comparatively speaking). There was no competition from the outside world to drive wages down or compete with american goods. You can't just say that's illusory. It's most certainly very real. In 1950 21,000 cars were imported. In 1986, over 4 million cars were imported.
And to the original number 3, over regulation certainly contributed to the collapse. The government was suing banks to force them to issue sketchy loans. The banks didn't want those loans on their books, so they packaged them up and dumped them off on sallie mae. So how is that not over regulation? Seems quite clear to me. But I was working in the banking industry at the time and saw this first hand. I realize not everyone was. Our bad debt percentages and delinquencies were through the roof.

I agree with most of this and had to go back and fact-check myself. The debt-to-GDP is the "correct" measure and started rising about 1981 and hasn't stopped since. It went from about 33% to about 105% today. I was incorrect in guessing that the ~3 decades prior to that would show similar debt issuance relative to growth.

The "illusory" part remains true which is that "big government" hasn't ushered in some sort of "new and permanent stability". Best case there was non-debt-driven economic growth and stability in the 1950s and 1960s, which was primarily as you pointed out from lack of international competition post-war. The 1970s were anything but stable of course, and anything considered "growth and stability" since the early 1980s has to be judged critically through the lens of the simultaneous massive increases of debt during those decades.

 

[terminalg92]

1. Well of course you do. If you thought it extreme, I'm guessing you wouldn't be one. Gary Johnson was called "the original Tea Party candidate." I'm guessing most folks would consider that evidence of some extreme positions. When I see his profile, yep, he takes all the far right positions on the economy, and all the far left positions on social issues. Thus, both sides would see him extreme on half his positions, and the middle would see him extreme on everything.

2. The rise in tuition is also a predictable outcome of a rising population (i.e. increased demand) + inflation. That's basic economics as well is it not? So separate out for me what part was that, and what part was increased tuition assistance/loans?

You'll have to explain to me how a byproduct of doing nothing is something. That sounds a lot to me like trickle down economics logic (if we stop taxing business and just get out of the way, they will make a ton of money and a "byproduct" of that will be that everyone benefits). Of course, we know that didn't happen. Why? Because the function of business is not to make everyone else's lives better, it's to make money and satisfy their shareholders while cutting expenses (including things like wages and benefits) as much as they can get away with.

I feel like the underwear gnomes:

1. Do nothing.
2. ????
3. Profit.

3. Whenever someone says there is ONE thing that caused something economically speaking in a nation as complicated as the US I don't know how to respond to that politely.

You've selected a pretty arbitrary time slice that includes:

1. the economic malaise of the last half of the 70s through to the end of the 82 recession (which had little to do with debt and a lot to do with the oil crises)
2. the Great Recession of 08 which again didn't have anything to do with GOVERNMENT debt

Why not start in 83? Or end in 07? Or start in 46? Or 51? You're missing a ton of boom years in the 50s and 60s.

What caused our post-war growth? A whole host of things:

1. Increased gov spending based on the war significantly aided industry and manufacturing which led to a ton of well-paying jobs (it also led to a burst of innovation which itself leads to new jobs).
2. The heavy investment in infrastructure (e.g. national highway system) that happened in the 30s, 40s, and 50s helped businesses and industry move their products more quickly and efficiently
3. Women and minorities in the workplace increased significantly, discrimination began it's decline, business had a larger pool of both skilled workers and people who could afford to buy their stuff
4. The beginnings of globalization created new markets for our businesses to sell to
5. The internet certainly helped as well by making it even easier to start and maintain a profitable business

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other things. So it wasn't just debt.

Furthermore, our Debt to GDP ratio isn't much different than Germany's. There are much worse off economies that have lower debt to GDP, and a couple better ones that have a higher one. No one suggests debt doesn't matter at all, but no it isn't everything either.

4. If gov didn't do the inspecting and the rating, then you'd place it on the consumer to figure it out. Because business A would just hire business B to do their rating. Now, is business B a legit rating company that calls it like it is, or is it a sham company that makes it up to satisfy it's clients? Good luck figuring that one out before something bad happens consumer.

5. It's great if you have money and the means to avoid those racist business and can take your money elsewhere. I think you severely overestimate the ability of the working poor to simply pick up and move to a better place, find a new job at said better, less racist place. There are going to be a ton of people reduced to second-class citizenship in your libertarian world because there are only a handful of business and none of them sell to "those people" or they redline them to make housing more expensive.

We've already DONE this. We had a time when businesses had no rules about race or any other preference, we already KNOW what the results would be and how it would affect certain populations. It's as if you missed the first half of the 20th century. Heck, redlining in loans and renting STILL goes on today even with the rules. But WAY less than it did without those rules.

You'd segregate this country again even more than it is now with black and hispanic and white areas of town with whites getting preferential loan and bank treatment.

I would prefer that you not be discriminated against at all, implicitly or explicitly when it comes to basic things like loans, hiring, firing, and goods and services. Call me crazy.

1) It's simply not true that Gary Johnson is taking the far-right economic stances and far-left social ones. Take the remaining 5 Rep/Dem candidates, make a list of their extreme views, and that list doesn't look anything like Johnson's (and in fact would look much more fringe). His platform is documented here. If one reads the entire page and views it in aggregate, it doesn't add up to an extreme platform. Obviously my view is debatable but I'd love to see each of the economic stances on Johnson's page "polled" among Conservatives and each of the social paragraphs "polled" among Liberals--I'd bet those poll results would be majority favorable i.e. they're not extreme.

What strikes me as most interesting though is there is no consistent foundational basis to modern-day Democrats and modern-day Republicans. The set of positions they hold can't be summarized with a coherent 1 word or 1 sentence "philosophy statement". With libertarians whether one agrees with it or not there's a consistent underlying framework which is in one word "liberty", and if expanded to a full sentence might be (and I quote whoever put this into Wikipedia), "Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association, and the primacy of individual judgment." If "liberty" is the one-word summary of libertarianism, what would the corresponding word be for Republicans? For Democrats? Well for starters you'd have to ask during what time period you're talking about-- the Democratic party for example actually started out with a classic libertarian platform and the Republican party started out as an anti-slavery party. The early Democratic party's rival was the Whigs who fought for protections of minorities. The Republic and Democratic parties have evolved over time to now "contain" an odd jumble of policy stances that don't seem to have an underlying framework that runs throughout the collection of beliefs.

2) Sure tuition could rise from a rise in population, but don't forget new and existing college growth/capacity over the same time. Once you factor that in I don't think population rise is explanatory of the cost increase. For example Purdue currently serves 4x the students it did 5 decades ago, the Univ of Phoenix has 162k students today yet had 0 students upon founding in 1976, etc. Without digging into the numbers I'd bet that supply (aggregate college student capacity) has increased with population and then some.

3) I agree on the boom years of the 50s and 60s, when international post-war competition was lacking and the U.S. was the main game in town. Beyond that time period I don't think there's much of a leg to stand on--IMO one would be hard-pressed to find a 15-20 year period of "modern big government" where both (a) growth was stable and strong and (b) debt wasn't outpacing growth. ANY country can rack up debt and appear more prosperous (growth) and stable (smoothing out the down-cycles) by simply pulling demand forward from the future via debt. In the short-term that is. As we will see first with Japan first in the coming years, this can only go on for so long...let's see how stable Japan looks over the next 10-15 years, how stable China looks over the next 30 years, etc. The U.S. isn't YET at the cliff that Japan is and may never be (hopefully), but I would argue strongly that if the U.S. were at present to stop adding more debt each year than its economy is growing, we'd be struggling immediately, and growth would go even lower than the paltry numbers we're already seeing. Hell even if just the PRICE OF MONEY (interest rates) were allowed to float instead of being artificially suppressed, chaos would ensue because the "easy money years" would be gone. We are living in a global artificial, fiat economy, and IMO this will become clear in the coming decade or two in one way shape or form, and I don't think the manifestation will look like growth and stability at all.

4) "is business B a legit rating company that calls it like it is, or is it a sham company that makes it up to satisfy it's clients?" This is pervasive today within government --regulatory capture. But again regulation isn't a hot-button issue for me anyway...there are always plenty of loopholes to circumvent them which is why there are trillions of dollars being housed in offshore banks and holding companies. The Government has known this for decades. Does it care? It either doesn't care or its powerless to stop it. Either choice isn't a ringing endorsement.

5) I don't agree with your forecasts, but notwithstanding that, you're entirely focused on outcomes--it's something of an "end justifies the means" argument. If I run a private business, I don't agree with the "means" (forcing that employer to hire someone they don't want to) in an attempt to justify the "end" (people not being explicitly discriminated against). I don't think it's ethical to force Person A to employ Person B with failure to do so leading to imprisonment of Person A.

 

[terminalg92]

Actually I forgot an important point. If the 1950s and 1960s are being cited as the "best example of stable and strong, non-debt-fueled growth", there's another BIG caveat there (not even withstanding lack of global competition), which is that U.S. government spending during those two decades was about 24% of GDP on average, whereas U.S. government spending over the last two decades was about 33% of GDP on average.

My point? the 1950s and 1960s were a really bad example of how "big government" leads to stable economic growth, because the government then was about 40% smaller relatively speaking than today's government. In the U.S. there hasn't even been a single "economically stable" decade where (a) the government was today's size or even 20-30% smaller AND (b) economic growth and stability wasn't simply coming from aggregate debt accumulation that occurred at a much faster pace than output growth.

My conclusion is that the jury is out on whether or not today's government size is long-term likely to lead to either stability or growth, other than by unsustainable accumulations of debt.

 

[Boilers1975]

Having worked in Retail for the last 40+years I have I have seen the effects of raising the minimum wage on the poor and youth of this country. Minimum wage is for entry level employees.
More d a making than minimum wage is Obamacare's 30 hour rule. Many part time workers were getting 34-36hours/ week but now must be kept under 30 hours with many companies putting it at 24-25hours/week. 10 hours at7.25 = $72.50/week. Many where I work were in the $8.50 -$9.00 range. Most are mothers with limited availability depending on babysitter availability. Several now work 2 part time jobs.
As for the youth we use to employ 10-12 high school kids/ location today maybe 1 or 2, some locations have 0. The higher the minimum wage the less jobs are available for entry level employees.

 

[BoilerJS]

Having worked in Retail for the last 40+years I have I have seen the effects of raising the minimum wage on the poor and youth of this country. Minimum wage is for entry level employees.
More d a making than minimum wage is Obamacare's 30 hour rule. Many part time workers were getting 34-36hours/ week but now must be kept under 30 hours with many companies putting it at 24-25hours/week. 10 hours at7.25 = $72.50/week. Many where I work were in the $8.50 -$9.00 range. Most are mothers with limited availability depending on babysitter availability. Several now work 2 part time jobs.
As for the youth we use to employ 10-12 high school kids/ location today maybe 1 or 2, some locations have 0. The higher the minimum wage the less jobs are available for entry level employees.

Pretty simple, I don't care if someone has an abortion, I just don't want to pay for it.
The Constitution says we have the right to bear arms to protect our liberties. Muslims are using guns to take away our liberties.
I have no problem with legal immigration. Let the refugees apply for US citizenship through our process. The bad ones won't wait that long which means the illegals need to be sent home.

 

[qazplm]

1) It's simply not true that Gary Johnson is taking the far-right economic stances and far-left social ones. Take the remaining 5 Rep/Dem candidates, make a list of their extreme views, and that list doesn't look anything like Johnson's (and in fact would look much more fringe). His platform is documented here. If one reads the entire page and views it in aggregate, it doesn't add up to an extreme platform. Obviously my view is debatable but I'd love to see each of the economic stances on Johnson's page "polled" among Conservatives and each of the social paragraphs "polled" among Liberals--I'd bet those poll results would be majority favorable i.e. they're not extreme.

What strikes me as most interesting though is there is no consistent foundational basis to modern-day Democrats and modern-day Republicans. The set of positions they hold can't be summarized with a coherent 1 word or 1 sentence "philosophy statement". With libertarians whether one agrees with it or not there's a consistent underlying framework which is in one word "liberty", and if expanded to a full sentence might be (and I quote whoever put this into Wikipedia), "Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association, and the primacy of individual judgment." If "liberty" is the one-word summary of libertarianism, what would the corresponding word be for Republicans? For Democrats? Well for starters you'd have to ask during what time period you're talking about-- the Democratic party for example actually started out with a classic libertarian platform and the Republican party started out as an anti-slavery party. The early Democratic party's rival was the Whigs who fought for protections of minorities. The Republic and Democratic parties have evolved over time to now "contain" an odd jumble of policy stances that don't seem to have an underlying framework that runs throughout the collection of beliefs.

2) Sure tuition could rise from a rise in population, but don't forget new and existing college growth/capacity over the same time. Once you factor that in I don't think population rise is explanatory of the cost increase. For example Purdue currently serves 4x the students it did 5 decades ago, the Univ of Phoenix has 162k students today yet had 0 students upon founding in 1976, etc. Without digging into the numbers I'd bet that supply (aggregate college student capacity) has increased with population and then some.

3) I agree on the boom years of the 50s and 60s, when international post-war competition was lacking and the U.S. was the main game in town. Beyond that time period I don't think there's much of a leg to stand on--IMO one would be hard-pressed to find a 15-20 year period of "modern big government" where both (a) growth was stable and strong and (b) debt wasn't outpacing growth. ANY country can rack up debt and appear more prosperous (growth) and stable (smoothing out the down-cycles) by simply pulling demand forward from the future via debt. In the short-term that is. As we will see first with Japan first in the coming years, this can only go on for so long...let's see how stable Japan looks over the next 10-15 years, how stable China looks over the next 30 years, etc. The U.S. isn't YET at the cliff that Japan is and may never be (hopefully), but I would argue strongly that if the U.S. were at present to stop adding more debt each year than its economy is growing, we'd be struggling immediately, and growth would go even lower than the paltry numbers we're already seeing. Hell even if just the PRICE OF MONEY (interest rates) were allowed to float instead of being artificially suppressed, chaos would ensue because the "easy money years" would be gone. We are living in a global artificial, fiat economy, and IMO this will become clear in the coming decade or two in one way shape or form, and I don't think the manifestation will look like growth and stability at all.

4) "is business B a legit rating company that calls it like it is, or is it a sham company that makes it up to satisfy it's clients?" This is pervasive today within government --regulatory capture. But again regulation isn't a hot-button issue for me anyway...there are always plenty of loopholes to circumvent them which is why there are trillions of dollars being housed in offshore banks and holding companies. The Government has known this for decades. Does it care? It either doesn't care or its powerless to stop it. Either choice isn't a ringing endorsement.

5) I don't agree with your forecasts, but notwithstanding that, you're entirely focused on outcomes--it's something of an "end justifies the means" argument. If I run a private business, I don't agree with the "means" (forcing that employer to hire someone they don't want to) in an attempt to justify the "end" (people not being explicitly discriminated against). I don't think it's ethical to force Person A to employ Person B with failure to do so leading to imprisonment of Person A.

1) I read up on his beliefs. I did that before commenting. Nothing changes what I said.

2) I am glad that very complex, interweaving, disparate political problems can't be summed up in a 1-word or 1-sentence political philosophy. Life in the modern era is complex, and complicated, and sometimes requires disparate approaches. The simplicity of libertarianism or communism for that matter may be logically/emotionally pleasing to some, but they don't work in reality where 100s of millions of people quickly turn simple into oh my god how do I solve this problem?!

3) Liberty is A virtue. It is not the ONLY virtue, and like anything else in life, it has it's limitations, and it competes with OTHER virtues. Again, libertarianism shares the same central flaw with communism, it just is in support of a different virtue as the supreme (only) virtue (liberty v equality).

4) The parties have evolved over time because this country has evolved from a backwater agrarian economy to a global superpower. We've gone (mostly) from a white male-centric/dominated society to a melting pot. We've gone from being an isolationist nation to a military, cultural, and economic global superpower. The times they have a-changed, and how you govern one society is not the same as how you govern another. As I've said before, if you have a small, isolated, agrarian society, you might be able to get away with a government that maximizes liberty over all else. It would probably need to also been very homogenous. But today's society? Not remotely.

5) I'm sure supply has increased...you know why supply increases though right? Demand. Demand doesn't ordinarily increase because of supply, it's usually the other way around.

6) We were also the only game in town for most of the 90s, and quite frankly militarily we still are...and I'd argue other than Germany, we are the preeminent economy right now, and no I don't count China because of the inflated nature of their economic success...but even if you did count China, we are still indispensable in every facet. So, not a ton has changed since the 50s and 60s save for a dip in the 70s and early 80s and I suppose a big dip for a couple of years thanks to Bush, but we've clearly weathered that storm better than any other western nation not named Germany.

7) I know you don't care about regulation. Most humans don't agree with you, and would like some way of knowing that generally speaking their food is safe, their water is clean, etc.

8) Outcomes dealing with human life and happiness and health and value are pretty important. You overstate the means as bads, and understate the ends as goods. You mean you might have to hire some qualified minorities? Oh no, tell me more of your troubles! You might have to serve Hispanics at your diner? The horror!

 

[terminalg92]

1) I read up on his beliefs. I did that before commenting. Nothing changes what I said.

2) I am glad that very complex, interweaving, disparate political problems can't be summed up in a 1-word or 1-sentence political philosophy. Life in the modern era is complex, and complicated, and sometimes requires disparate approaches. The simplicity of libertarianism or communism for that matter may be logically/emotionally pleasing to some, but they don't work in reality where 100s of millions of people quickly turn simple into oh my god how do I solve this problem?!

3) Liberty is A virtue. It is not the ONLY virtue, and like anything else in life, it has it's limitations, and it competes with OTHER virtues. Again, libertarianism shares the same central flaw with communism, it just is in support of a different virtue as the supreme (only) virtue (liberty v equality).

4) The parties have evolved over time because this country has evolved from a backwater agrarian economy to a global superpower. We've gone (mostly) from a white male-centric/dominated society to a melting pot. We've gone from being an isolationist nation to a military, cultural, and economic global superpower. The times they have a-changed, and how you govern one society is not the same as how you govern another. As I've said before, if you have a small, isolated, agrarian society, you might be able to get away with a government that maximizes liberty over all else. It would probably need to also been very homogenous. But today's society? Not remotely.

5) I'm sure supply has increased...you know why supply increases though right? Demand. Demand doesn't ordinarily increase because of supply, it's usually the other way around.

6) We were also the only game in town for most of the 90s, and quite frankly militarily we still are...and I'd argue other than Germany, we are the preeminent economy right now, and no I don't count China because of the inflated nature of their economic success...but even if you did count China, we are still indispensable in every facet. So, not a ton has changed since the 50s and 60s save for a dip in the 70s and early 80s and I suppose a big dip for a couple of years thanks to Bush, but we've clearly weathered that storm better than any other western nation not named Germany.

7) I know you don't care about regulation. Most humans don't agree with you, and would like some way of knowing that generally speaking their food is safe, their water is clean, etc.

8) Outcomes dealing with human life and happiness and health and value are pretty important. You overstate the means as bads, and understate the ends as goods. You mean you might have to hire some qualified minorities? Oh no, tell me more of your troubles! You might have to serve Hispanics at your diner? The horror!

1) I would bet a LOT of money that if you took Gary Johnson's published platform, divided it up into 2 separate groupings of (A) economic topics and (B) social topics, then took bucket A and polled registered conservatives if these economic issues were extreme, then took bucket B and polled registered liberals if these social issues were extreme, the majority answer to both polls would be "no, these are not extreme views". We can each have our opinion but that would be the way to answer the question objectively, and I have no doubt I would win that bet though I obviously don't have access to such a poll.

2) There's just no underlying thread to the modern-day Democratic and Republican party platforms. Unfortunately this leads to groupthink, because when new issues arise, there's no consistent lens or foundational philosophy with which to "assess" these issues.

3) I suspect this is probably our fundamental difference, if in a given scenario there has to be a tradeoff between liberty and equality, I favor liberty and you favor equality. Not trying to put words in your mouth I just suspect that's where we're at.

4) IMO liberty is substantially more critical today than ever, and the reason is, liberty in 1800s agrarian society mainly meant "don't come onto my land or I might shoot you!" Whereas liberty today is relevant even as I'm typing this post, or texting a friend, or calling my grandmother, or going to my Doctor, or doing something in my home of no harm to anyone else that shouldn't be anyone else's business but that the government has MADE its business, etc. Where ISN'T the government these days? George Orwell would be proud!

5) College prices have risen so rapidly for one main and obvious reason, because of government subsidy via student loans. Most people don't even know this but guess what's the U.S. Government's biggest asset on its balance sheet? Student loans, BY FAR. It "owns" $950B dollars of student loans. Guess how much student loans the gov't owned just 20 years ago in 1995? A mere $7 billion. So in 20 years the Fed increased its student loan subsidies by 135-fold, or by almost a trillion dollars total. In 1995 student loans were 2% of government's assets and now they're 45%. Why anyone is surprised that college tuitions have grown out of control over the last 2 decades is beyond me. And this underscores my earlier point: government officials either don't understand basic economics or they don't care about these types of deleterious effects. Anyone concerned about inequality should be GRAVELY concerned about this because it's obviously regressive.

6) Again for the last 30-40 years, including the 1990s which you reference, the main driver of economic growth has been DEBT. That's it. I'm talking about household debt, corporate debt, domestic government debt, and foreign government debt. Let me state this in a simpler way than before: in 1982, total U.S. debt (consumer/corp/govt) was a very typical historical level of 150% of GDP. Today it's 330% of GDP. So adjusting for inflation (all numbers in today's $$), total debt increased from $9.75T in 1982 to $54.5T in 2015. That's a 5.5x increase in 33 years!!!! This is an EXTREME change in debt levels in such a relatively short period of time. Now of course GDP increased too though, again factoring in inflation: GDP increased from $6.5T in 1982 to $16.5T in 2015, or a 2.5x increase. The net of it is over this particular 33-year period, debt increased $1.35T/year while GDP increased $0.30T/year ($300B/year). Several decades of growth were simply being pulled forward from the future, that's it. It was illusory growth. Future and younger generations will be bitter about this if they already aren't. Again anyone concerned about inequality should be GRAVELY concerned about this; at a minimum it's generational inequality (theft, really) and once again it's also highly regressive.

8) It's in a company's best interest to hire the best person for the job. That doesn't mean the company WILL hire the best person, but if a company consistently hires inferior employees, that company will be an inferior competitor vis-a-vis companies that DO hire the best people. And if a company chooses not to sell to certain customers because of race/gender/whatever, that company will be handing easy sales to its competitor that will sell to anyone. Interestingly, the most successful minority classes in the U.S. will tell you they are being discriminated against in critical matters such as college admissions, and have even filed lawsuits and formal complaints with the Department of Education and many individual colleges. As I said before the GOVERNMENT should never be allowed to discriminate, because government power and funding comes from all citizens of ALL classes. I'm all in favor of eliminating government-sanctioned discrimination against minorities...that should never be tolerated.

I'd like to go back to that word "extreme" that you used earlier in the thread. Most people are so numb/used to today's circumstances that they actually haven't bothered to look around and see that we are currently sitting at many objectively-measured extremes such as:

* extreme levels of inflation-adjusted total U.S. debt (household/corp/govt) - 98th-99th percentile in U.S. history
* extreme levels of U.S. incarceration--highest in the world in total incarceration as well as incarceration rate as % of population
* extreme levels of inflation-adjusted Federal Reserve money printing--99th percentile in history
* extreme levels of military spending--most in the world and more than the next 7 countries COMBINED!
* extreme levels of stock market valuations--by reliable measurements valuations today are only eclipsed by the 1929 and 2000 bubbles
* extreme levels of low interest rates through Fed suppression--0.25% or less short-term rates for 7 years running, which has NEVER happened before
* extreme levels of government monitoring and surveillance--completely unprecedented because now there now exists the technology to accomplish this at scale
* extreme global temperatures--highest in 130 years of recorded history
* extreme levels of low net exports as a % of GDP--97% percentile
* extreme levels of high net imports as a % of GDP--99% percentile

All of the above are facts and are extreme by definition either relative to history or relative to other countries. IF Democrats and Republicans don't have extreme viewpoints, then I do find it interesting that decades of their combined leadership has yielded such factually extreme outcomes. It remains to be seen whether stability will be the long-term outcome of all of this. I tend to think it won't be.

 

[qazplm]

1) I would bet a LOT of money that if you took Gary Johnson's published platform, divided it up into 2 separate groupings of (A) economic topics and (B) social topics, then took bucket A and polled registered conservatives if these economic issues were extreme, then took bucket B and polled registered liberals if these social issues were extreme, the majority answer to both polls would be "no, these are not extreme views". We can each have our opinion but that would be the way to answer the question objectively, and I have no doubt I would win that bet though I obviously don't have access to such a poll.

2) There's just no underlying thread to the modern-day Democratic and Republican party platforms. Unfortunately this leads to groupthink, because when new issues arise, there's no consistent lens or foundational philosophy with which to "assess" these issues.

3) I suspect this is probably our fundamental difference, if in a given scenario there has to be a tradeoff between liberty and equality, I favor liberty and you favor equality. Not trying to put words in your mouth I just suspect that's where we're at.

4) IMO liberty is substantially more critical today than ever, and the reason is, liberty in 1800s agrarian society mainly meant "don't come onto my land or I might shoot you!" Whereas liberty today is relevant even as I'm typing this post, or texting a friend, or calling my grandmother, or going to my Doctor, or doing something in my home of no harm to anyone else that shouldn't be anyone else's business but that the government has MADE its business, etc. Where ISN'T the government these days? George Orwell would be proud!

5) College prices have risen so rapidly for one main and obvious reason, because of government subsidy via student loans. Most people don't even know this but guess what's the U.S. Government's biggest asset on its balance sheet? Student loans, BY FAR. It "owns" $950B dollars of student loans. Guess how much student loans the gov't owned just 20 years ago in 1995? A mere $7 billion. So in 20 years the Fed increased its student loan subsidies by 135-fold, or by almost a trillion dollars total. In 1995 student loans were 2% of government's assets and now they're 45%. Why anyone is surprised that college tuitions have grown out of control over the last 2 decades is beyond me. And this underscores my earlier point: government officials either don't understand basic economics or they don't care about these types of deleterious effects. Anyone concerned about inequality should be GRAVELY concerned about this because it's obviously regressive.

6) Again for the last 30-40 years, including the 1990s which you reference, the main driver of economic growth has been DEBT. That's it. I'm talking about household debt, corporate debt, domestic government debt, and foreign government debt. Let me state this in a simpler way than before: in 1982, total U.S. debt (consumer/corp/govt) was a very typical historical level of 150% of GDP. Today it's 330% of GDP. So adjusting for inflation (all numbers in today's $$), total debt increased from $9.75T in 1982 to $54.5T in 2015. That's a 5.5x increase in 33 years!!!! This is an EXTREME change in debt levels in such a relatively short period of time. Now of course GDP increased too though, again factoring in inflation: GDP increased from $6.5T in 1982 to $16.5T in 2015, or a 2.5x increase. The net of it is over this particular 33-year period, debt increased $1.35T/year while GDP increased $0.30T/year ($300B/year). Several decades of growth were simply being pulled forward from the future, that's it. It was illusory growth. Future and younger generations will be bitter about this if they already aren't. Again anyone concerned about inequality should be GRAVELY concerned about this; at a minimum it's generational inequality (theft, really) and once again it's also highly regressive.

8) It's in a company's best interest to hire the best person for the job. That doesn't mean the company WILL hire the best person, but if a company consistently hires inferior employees, that company will be an inferior competitor vis-a-vis companies that DO hire the best people. And if a company chooses not to sell to certain customers because of race/gender/whatever, that company will be handing easy sales to its competitor that will sell to anyone. Interestingly, the most successful minority classes in the U.S. will tell you they are being discriminated against in critical matters such as college admissions, and have even filed lawsuits and formal complaints with the Department of Education and many individual colleges. As I said before the GOVERNMENT should never be allowed to discriminate, because government power and funding comes from all citizens of ALL classes. I'm all in favor of eliminating government-sanctioned discrimination against minorities...that should never be tolerated.

I'd like to go back to that word "extreme" that you used earlier in the thread. Most people are so numb/used to today's circumstances that they actually haven't bothered to look around and see that we are currently sitting at many objectively-measured extremes such as:

* extreme levels of inflation-adjusted total U.S. debt (household/corp/govt) - 98th-99th percentile in U.S. history
* extreme levels of U.S. incarceration--highest in the world in total incarceration as well as incarceration rate as % of population
* extreme levels of inflation-adjusted Federal Reserve money printing--99th percentile in history
* extreme levels of military spending--most in the world and more than the next 7 countries COMBINED!
* extreme levels of stock market valuations--by reliable measurements valuations today are only eclipsed by the 1929 and 2000 bubbles
* extreme levels of low interest rates through Fed suppression--0.25% or less short-term rates for 7 years running, which has NEVER happened before
* extreme levels of government monitoring and surveillance--completely unprecedented because now there now exists the technology to accomplish this at scale
* extreme global temperatures--highest in 130 years of recorded history
* extreme levels of low net exports as a % of GDP--97% percentile
* extreme levels of high net imports as a % of GDP--99% percentile

All of the above are facts and are extreme by definition either relative to history or relative to other countries. IF Democrats and Republicans don't have extreme viewpoints, then I do find it interesting that decades of their combined leadership has yielded such factually extreme outcomes. It remains to be seen whether stability will be the long-term outcome of all of this. I tend to think it won't be.

1) Cutting fed budget almost in half? I doubt most conservatives would even agree with that. Cutting entitlements and defense? Most on either side wouldn't agree with that. Many of the other pronouncements he has is focused on one thing, the debt, as if that's the only economic issue there is. Zero corporate income tax? Again, even conservatives don't generally agree with zero corporate income tax. Getting rid of all student loans? lol come on. He believes in global warming, but doesn't want to do anything about it really. He's fully free trade, again something neither side is for. He wants to cut the military by 43% and get rid of the TSA. I'm just laying out the things most on both sides wouldn't agree with and I haven't stopped scrolling.

2) I gave you underlying themes above. Folks on the left value personal freedom but are ok with constraints on economic freedoms. Conservatives tend to value economic freedom but are ok with constraints on personal freedoms. An obviously very broad brush. Libertarians are just simply freedom. They place that one value above and beyond all other values. It makes for a tidy theory I suppose, but it doesn't work in the real world.

3) I favor some semblance of balance between varying values: freedom, fairness, equality, opportunity, hard work, helping hand, etc. I suspect conservatives do too, they just place different numbers behind those varying values than liberals do. Libertarians place all their eggs in the freedom basket just like communists place all their eggs in the equality basket.

4) You've identified one issue. That folks on all sides don't like, although I'll note it was one side that created DHS.

5) You keep saying things are due to "one main reason." You continually over-simplify pretty complex economic principles. I suspect college costs have gone up for a host of reasons. Inflation, rising demand. http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/trends/tuition_fees.pdf This link for example shows the mixed bag that is tuition and fees depending on whether 4 year public or private, or 2 year public.
I'd argue that fact that manufacturing jobs and trade skills are rapidly declining means a lot more people have to go to college now to get a halfway decent job. It used to be a high school diploma and a trade school could get you into the middle class...now, not so much. The point is, there's a host of reasons, it's complicated, and you try to way simplify it too much.

6) Yes, we get it, you think debt rules everything and it's all about to collapse. That mantra has been said for decades...just like several other economic mantras like trickle down. It's not excessive debt right now. Most economists say our Debt to GDP ratio, while not ideal, is not threatening. It's better than Germany's last time I checked, and they seem to be doing pretty good. Tell ya what, if the economy falls apart because of debt, you can say I told you so, but it's not.

7) No, it's in a company's best interest to hire as few workers as possible, as cheaply as possible, to do an adequate enough job. Do you think Wal-Mart needs the best stockers? Or Burger King needs the best burger flippers? Or that even a hospital needs the best doctors? They need folks good enough, willing to work for as little as they can pay them, in order to make the largest profit. You also assume competition exists everywhere, it does not. So there will be plenty of places where not selling to blacks or hispanics won't result in losing business to anyone else, and those poor folks will either have to deal with it or pick up and move to somewhere that does it, and you will create a HIGHLY segregated society in this country. Talk about "no-go zones." Because you value "freedom" then for you so be it. For most of the rest of us, not so much.

We also have pretty extreme standard of living compared to our historical average, or lifespans...I mean if we are going to compare to our personal historical average going back to the start, then there are a lot of positive "extremes" out there. Some of the extremes you list are bad, and I don't agree with them, so of them are only "extreme" in that they are in a high percentile and I don't have a problem with them. But at best, just because you've identified some real issues, doesn't mean the solutions you propose will either fix them, or not create whole new problems.