BBO Discussion Forums: Obama vs Roman Catholic Church - BBO Discussion Forums

blackshoe, on 2012-March-04, 20:32, said:

Paulville, Texas

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Let us know how this works out.

If we are making suggestions about individualists (even if he didn't build his own house as far as I know, but I bet he could have had he needed to) may I suggest Joel Salatin http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ I believe that one of the many labels he uses for himself is libertarian

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I am not so sure about this claim. I would venture that when mankind operated as hunter-gatherers, the h-g model pretty much followed libertarian ideals, and although humans survived, it wasn't until humans began acting in a collectivist fashion and cooperated in survival that mankind began to thrive.

onoway, on 2012-March-04, 21:28, said:

I don't doubt that there are isolated survivalists and others who may know individually quite a lot about survival, and perhaps even how to rebuild civilization unaided, but I only profess a massive doubt whether the vast majority of people could come anywhere close to remodeling their current environment if they had to start from scratch, unaided.

Collectivism aids everyone. Individualism only aids a group in increasing its collective abilities.

Winstonm, on 2012-March-04, 21:55, said:

Your biases are showing.

We tried a free market during the last decades in several ways. The banking crisis is one result of these efforts.

There is no need to believe in the "free market". You have evidence from history and from what happens today that the free market is a beast which will indeed increase the aveage standard level. But unluckily, this increase is paid with a much bigger gasp between "the rich" and "the poor". You may or may not believe in God, but in economy you sometimes have facts.

I know, this is oversimplified, but it is what happened after Misses Thather and Mister Reegan openend a lot of markets.

Codo, on 2012-March-05, 01:53, said:

I am sorry ....no need to believe in free markets?


Ok you hit the core.....question...if you dont know the answer...ok....ask or tell us the answer

If free markets not the answer pray tell what is and why?

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If in general people think it is best to put economic and political power in same hands...fair enough...that is the debate.

Many say yes we should...

blackshoe, on 2012-March-04, 20:32, said:

Some would argue that mankind's complete inability to build a "free market" society any time over that back several hundred years is a pretty comment about the nature of "reality"

a true free-market economy would require a very strong government since otherwise someone (trade unions, media monopolies, churches, w/e) would soon fill the power vacuum and the market would no longer be free.

I think that would be difficult to achieve. The politicians and civil servants who run the government do not necessarily believe that free-market principles are in their own interests. Or that free-market principles are the way to achieve whatever aims they have been elected/hired to achieve.

I think that if I were a top bureacrat, even if I strongly believed in free-market principles, I would find myself spending most of my time creating interventions designed to mitigate the (in my view) negative impact of the interventions designed by my peers.

Not that these thoughts keep me awake at night. For one thing, I don't believe in ideology (libertarian or otherwise) anyway.

helene_t, on 2012-March-05, 05:55, said:

Well said. I think many miss the boat when they confuse free market with unregulated market. The jungle is an unregulated market. Saying you must sell your wares within the confines of these borders near the wharf is still a free market, but it is bounded by rules, i.e., it is regulated.

I am sure if someone better educated can FIFM if this next part is wrong, but my understanding is that even Adam Smith did not argue for totally unregulated markets as he believed local competition to be the key to capitalism, and therefore he would have been staunchly against the bastardization of his ideas to deregulate banking and allow mergers that gave rise to TBTF banks and corporations which, until Reagan's administration, would have been in violation anti-trust laws.

If we talk about the free market here in Germany, we mean the market you called unregulated. It is beyond my horizon, how a regulated market can still be free, but maybe this is just a matter of semantics.

Smiths ideal world had as a condition the total competition. But even then an unregulated market does not work. Missing competition was not the problem in the financial sector. Theoretically we had enough competition. (I am not in a position to know whether this competition had been there in practice too, I guess yes)
But the anti law trusts, the separation of different bank types etc had been tools to control the immense power of the financial sector. After these laws had been abandoned, the greed had no more confines and became almighty.
Even this had been no problem, if we had been in a position to let the companies fall down which failed. But we had not been in that position. We had to spend billions so that they can survive despite their horrible greedy mistakes.

This had been a paradise for bank managers: You play on big risk. If you win, you earn millions. If you lose, your governement will safe you, Halleluja. It had been (and still is) like playing roulette with a big financier who pays all your losses but allows you to keep all your wins.

Codo, on 2012-March-05, 08:58, said:

How do you say yep in German? Ja?

blackshoe, on 2012-March-04, 22:21, said:

Yes, I am biased toward what works in practice rather than a dogmatic ideology.

FWIW, there are a number of polls out that currently show that "Obama versus the Catholic Church" is a very inaccurate way to frame what's going on.

Outside of church hierarchy, this whole brouhaha really isn't playing well with American Catholics (the majority of whom are backing the Obama administration)

The folks who are really riled up about this are fundamentalist Protestants....

Codo, on 2012-March-05, 08:58, said:

This may be what you mean when you talk about "free markets" but I don't believe it matches the original definition at all.

No, I think it had been a free market, and turned into something else later. In a real free market, the financial sector had not been rescued.

Take a seat in the shaming room.

Winstonm, on 2012-March-05, 12:24, said:

Heh. What "dogmatic ideology" is that, Winston? And what, exactly, is it that "works in practice" better than a free market, and how do you know, considering there's never in modern history been a truly free market?

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The Forcing Pass, of course. This is a bridge site still, isn't it?

Winstonm, on 2012-March-12, 20:41, said:

If a man makes a forcing pass while playing with a female partner, should she slap his face or call the director?