This is why bankruptcy needs to be stigmatized. We need good-faith bankruptcies, but we can't make laws that reliably distinguish between those and the other kind. The stigma makes people more likely to avoid filing bankruptcy if at all possible. Without the stigma, there's a risk that some people will see bankruptcy as the easy way out when it's not strictly necessary. So, yes, we need bankruptcy, but we also need the stigma it carries.
The vast preponderance of these bankruptcies, business or personal, are caused by people taking a financial risk that they were unable to capitalize on, which led to debts they were not able to pay.
Is this actually true? That is, how much debt discharged in bankruptcy is due to debt incurred for purposes that could reasonably be classified as investment, as opposed to consumer debt? Technically it's true that consumer debt is debt that the consumer was unable to capitalize on, but that's because there was never any actual plan to capitalize on it. You seem to be saying that the vast majority of bankruptcies involve mostly the former category of debt---on what are you basing this?
I've seen it many times. Apparently some leftists can't see any middle ground between Canada and straight-up anarchy. I like to pretend that they're the same ones who accuse us of black-and-white thinking.
There's an exception for actually using it as a legal term of art. There are also probably a few acceptable uses of the term "exploitation," though none come to mind. Usually it just signifies deep confusion about basic issues of causality.
The terminology is wrong, but usually what the person actually intends to say---i.e., that we have constitutional limits on majority rule, and that our legislative system is not strictly majoritarian even aside from that---is perfectly valid and correct.
On that note, there's "working class." Like the rest of us don't work, too? That said, it's idiomatic enough that it's not necessarily a sign of sloppy thinking.
No, of course not. But leftism really isn't about identifying specific individuals who have acquired their wealth illegitimately and returning it to its rightful owners. If it were, we'd be on board. Now, some leftists use the fact that some rich people have acquired wealth illegitimately (or, more often, "illegitimately") as rhetorical justification for levying heavy taxes on all rich people, but the fallacy there is obvious.
A vast majority of the wealth held in this country was accumulated during periods when property ownership was explicitly forbidden to all but a select group of white males.
I'd like to see you elaborate on this claim, as it seems very obviously wrong to me. The US, like every other country in the world, was poor by modern standards until the 20th century. Real GDP didn't exceed a trillion 2005 dollars until 1940 or so; now it's over thirteen trillion. There's very little old (19th century or older) money on the Forbes 400 list. Certainly nothing that could be described as any kind of majority, much less a vast majority.
Except you can't really do unit testing or regression testing with government. They do pilot programs occasionally, but those often fail to scale, and for the most part, changes go live with no testing at all. And you never really can verify whether they work.
Regarding #3, there's no better way to learn about the law of unintended consequences than working on a complex software system. How anyone can not be skeptical of government tinkering after checking in that one simple fix that broke everything, I'll never know.
Except this doesn't fit the data, as I've pointed out repeatedly. The primary point of contention between the libertarians and leftists with respect to tax policy is whether or not to raise taxes on those making over $250,000 per year, which is considerably more than a pretty wide majority of people in either camp are making. If anything, it's libertarians who are arguing against our own narrow personal interests, and leftists who are arguing for theirs.
Where libertarians differ from leftists is that we lack a sense of entitlement to other people's property.
I think free-market advocates actually overstate the fragility of markets and understate the power of markets to adapt to structures that shape the space in which they operate.
To say that markets adapt is to miss the point entirely, the point being that the adaptations are often undesirable. You may have heard one or two libertarians referring to the law of unintended consequences at some point.
I haven’t seen any that can’t be chalked up to our neocolonial meddling in the region.
That's just taken as axiomatic by the left. Insofar as any nonwestern culture is demonstrably inferior to the Anglosphere, it's because of colonialism. Because any other explanation is racist, and therefore wrong.
It's not percent change from the same quarter of the previous year. It's basically (CurrentQuarterGDP / LastQuarterGDP) ^ 4 - 1. That is, the quarterly rate of change extrapolated out to a full year. The idea is to be able to compare rates of growth for periods of differing lengths without having to do any math. That is, if the annualized rate of growth for a quarter is 4%, that's the same rate of growth as an economy which grew 4% in a year.
It says GDP was up 1.4% for the year ending December 2011. The numbers shown for the individual quarters are all 0.6% or less, so definitely not annualized. Also, failure to exceed an annualized RGDP change of 1.3% in either direction in any given quarter over a six-year period strikes me as an implausibly low degree of volatility for any economy.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Suicide is Painless…It Brings on Many Changes…”
+1 for using the word "lyric" correctly.
On “A Capitalist’s Love Ballad to Bankruptcy”
This is why bankruptcy needs to be stigmatized. We need good-faith bankruptcies, but we can't make laws that reliably distinguish between those and the other kind. The stigma makes people more likely to avoid filing bankruptcy if at all possible. Without the stigma, there's a risk that some people will see bankruptcy as the easy way out when it's not strictly necessary. So, yes, we need bankruptcy, but we also need the stigma it carries.
"
The vast preponderance of these bankruptcies, business or personal, are caused by people taking a financial risk that they were unable to capitalize on, which led to debts they were not able to pay.
Is this actually true? That is, how much debt discharged in bankruptcy is due to debt incurred for purposes that could reasonably be classified as investment, as opposed to consumer debt? Technically it's true that consumer debt is debt that the consumer was unable to capitalize on, but that's because there was never any actual plan to capitalize on it. You seem to be saying that the vast majority of bankruptcies involve mostly the former category of debt---on what are you basing this?
On “Jonah Goldberg’s Very Small Penis : How One NRO Correspondent Plans to Kill Your Children, Eat Your Puppies & Sodomize Your Kittens”
I've seen it many times. Apparently some leftists can't see any middle ground between Canada and straight-up anarchy. I like to pretend that they're the same ones who accuse us of black-and-white thinking.
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Thinking Simply Saying the Acronym “PC” Out Loud Is An Actual Argument
To be fair, this is very often a response to the use of the words "racism," "sexism," and/or "offensive" as stand-alone arguments.
On “Words And Phrases”
Isn't "and" the conjunction to use there?
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There's an exception for actually using it as a legal term of art. There are also probably a few acceptable uses of the term "exploitation," though none come to mind. Usually it just signifies deep confusion about basic issues of causality.
"
Seconded "Living Constitution." A "living constitution" is a dead constitution.
I was pretty proud of that one until I Googled it and got 42,000 hits.
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The terminology is wrong, but usually what the person actually intends to say---i.e., that we have constitutional limits on majority rule, and that our legislative system is not strictly majoritarian even aside from that---is perfectly valid and correct.
"
On that note, there's "working class." Like the rest of us don't work, too? That said, it's idiomatic enough that it's not necessarily a sign of sloppy thinking.
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Also, "exploitation."
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"Corporate Personhood"
On “A Question for Techies, Engineers and the Libertarian-Leaning”
No, of course not. But leftism really isn't about identifying specific individuals who have acquired their wealth illegitimately and returning it to its rightful owners. If it were, we'd be on board. Now, some leftists use the fact that some rich people have acquired wealth illegitimately (or, more often, "illegitimately") as rhetorical justification for levying heavy taxes on all rich people, but the fallacy there is obvious.
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I don't think this is right at all. Special interest groups are one of the major reasons why government interventions work so badly.
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If folks are going to rail against voluntary policies, then it isn’t exactly unfair to ascribe to them such positions.
Would it be fair for us to judge your political philosophy by its dumbest adherents?
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A vast majority of the wealth held in this country was accumulated during periods when property ownership was explicitly forbidden to all but a select group of white males.
I'd like to see you elaborate on this claim, as it seems very obviously wrong to me. The US, like every other country in the world, was poor by modern standards until the 20th century. Real GDP didn't exceed a trillion 2005 dollars until 1940 or so; now it's over thirteen trillion. There's very little old (19th century or older) money on the Forbes 400 list. Certainly nothing that could be described as any kind of majority, much less a vast majority.
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Libertarianism is great, but business/people need tax breaks to <do something>.
Wait...what? With lower government spending, everyone gets tax breaks.
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Except you can't really do unit testing or regression testing with government. They do pilot programs occasionally, but those often fail to scale, and for the most part, changes go live with no testing at all. And you never really can verify whether they work.
"
Regarding #3, there's no better way to learn about the law of unintended consequences than working on a complex software system. How anyone can not be skeptical of government tinkering after checking in that one simple fix that broke everything, I'll never know.
"
Except this doesn't fit the data, as I've pointed out repeatedly. The primary point of contention between the libertarians and leftists with respect to tax policy is whether or not to raise taxes on those making over $250,000 per year, which is considerably more than a pretty wide majority of people in either camp are making. If anything, it's libertarians who are arguing against our own narrow personal interests, and leftists who are arguing for theirs.
Where libertarians differ from leftists is that we lack a sense of entitlement to other people's property.
On “Wiring the Wonky Left’s Moral Compass”
Granted, it's better than a total breakdown of markets, but I think that's a bit of a strawman.
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I think free-market advocates actually overstate the fragility of markets and understate the power of markets to adapt to structures that shape the space in which they operate.
To say that markets adapt is to miss the point entirely, the point being that the adaptations are often undesirable. You may have heard one or two libertarians referring to the law of unintended consequences at some point.
On “Sandefur: Voting for Obama”
I haven’t seen any that can’t be chalked up to our neocolonial meddling in the region.
That's just taken as axiomatic by the left. Insofar as any nonwestern culture is demonstrably inferior to the Anglosphere, it's because of colonialism. Because any other explanation is racist, and therefore wrong.
On “First Quarter 2012 GDP At 2.2%”
It's not percent change from the same quarter of the previous year. It's basically (CurrentQuarterGDP / LastQuarterGDP) ^ 4 - 1. That is, the quarterly rate of change extrapolated out to a full year. The idea is to be able to compare rates of growth for periods of differing lengths without having to do any math. That is, if the annualized rate of growth for a quarter is 4%, that's the same rate of growth as an economy which grew 4% in a year.
"
It says GDP was up 1.4% for the year ending December 2011. The numbers shown for the individual quarters are all 0.6% or less, so definitely not annualized. Also, failure to exceed an annualized RGDP change of 1.3% in either direction in any given quarter over a six-year period strikes me as an implausibly low degree of volatility for any economy.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.