first world problems

https://www.coursera.org/course/macroeconomics

It only just started so you can still catch up.

On April 08 2013 10:51 Royal_Rumble wrote: The wire is a piece of fiction and using it to show that the world is bad and man is evil, because of the actions of a few characters in there is a joke.

incapable of any thought experiments?

to stroggoz:

great blog, i'm not sure if you skipped college, but if you did i think a major in economics would completely suit you as i think economics simply stresses critical thinking, cause/effect analysis.

the contradictory logic concerning wall street:

as you illustrated earlier in your wire example, it's extremely easy to have corrupt government leaders sacrifice the utility of society and increase their own personal utility. so for wall street, government regulation still would not be the appropriate antidote in order to solve the problem.

one thing i want to add about wall street, is that very few people understand what wall street is, what it encompasses and what it entails. i can't help but feel as though it is such an easy scapegoat for anyone to simply take advantage of and pander to the masses. there's a lot of selling in wallstreet, since bull or bear market as long as people are selling/buying, wallstreet is making commissions but i dont see how this is different then any other industry where people charge fees or commissions for services or goods.

individual human rationalism,

this is the first premise of economics, that people behave rationally. the first and only assumption made in order to derive the whole science. i don't think it's that far fetched as 95% of the time we do in fact act rationally. there is a whole new exploding field of "behavioral economics" and this pretty much addresses the 5% of the time where people act "irrationally."

i say "irrational" with quotations because economist like to think that they can analyze the "irrationality" and find its rational components however intricate and complex they may be. i HIGHLY recommend the book "freakonomics.:" despite its popularity and despite the fact that levin "sold out" in creating the book, it definitely illustrates what economists do. they look to understand and create models to forecast future events. it's all about finding the right data.

lastly i think the smartest people are more inclined to be altruistic. i don't have data on this and i'm not quite sure how one could measure this, but i think if there are smart and capable people, they tend to realize how much of their work is due to their genes/environment and somewhat accept that nothing was truly of their "own" will power/efforts. And if they ARE in fact EVIL, then we are fucked anyways however when you have government regulations and corrupt officials all this changes, as its a war on the 'rich' or what i would like to think as the most capable, then we all lose.

think of the US postal service. it went fucking bankrupt and had to be bailed out. they were giving out ridiculous fucking pensions and couldn't cover costs. this would never ever fucking happen in a private industry.

think of your time at the DMV. think how inefficient it is and how literally half of the people working here would NEVER have jobs in the private sector.

think of a number 2 pencil. think of how the wood required to make this pencil comes from 4 continents. how the metal piece of aluminum has come from all different regions. think of how many languages and country barriers these resources have passed through. all for what? all for a necessary tool that the people of the earth demand. that they want.

now think of how the company that makes the number 2 pencil, how they are using all resources to the best allocation. how if they find a better supplier of wood for instance in country X, how they would use the more cost effective wood, and how that cost savings would be passed on to the consumers.

economics maximizes the people's resources. if there is a shitty pencil factory, than it will go out of business because they couldn't make the same product at an equal cost. perhaps it was a higher cost. or they didn't have the best engineers in order to create more efficient manufacturing processes.

they should go bankrupt. it's not in society's best interest to bailout or keep alive this inefficient entity. except this is EXACTLY what the government does. we shouldn't be producing NEAR the ammount of for instance, high fructose corn syrup. that industry is falling, and we the people, don't demand it. yet the corrupt government (just like the wire example) FORCE the demand, by PURCHASING EXCESS DEMAND with the PEOPLE's TAX MONEY.

when i was in college, out of the 1000 peers that i encountered taking basic micro/macro economics as either a student or a TA, i can honestly say that maybe 10% of the people truly understood economics.

i'm not sure why it is such a complicated topic, but it was extremely apparent how small a percentage of people understand economics. this isn't to say that 10% of the people got A's, but many of them got by through memorization.

When a politician reach's the pinnacle of success, they are no longer someone you would want running your country. Power corrupts and so does the path to achieving it, the very nature of the people who choose such a path makes them far from desirable as leaders.

Imagine if our leaders were simply chosen from a list of qualified candidates.

the problem with the world is that most people are just plain idiots, this leads to having no introspection which leads to a shitty copied twisted moral compass which leads to suffering.

strog you still seem to fail to understand what the word liberal means

i relate really well w/ your point about the world being one which marginalizes people who try to spread the wealth and make things better for everyone.

i have more money than pretty much all my friends and its really hard to conceal that. i also like to do them favors and help them out if i can. at the same time ... i have to be constantly on guard for people realizing my situation and taking advantage of me for it. its super annoying.

wow, at first i didn't like marshall but i guess i didn't realize the struggles he lives with everyday. hang in there dude.

On April 08 2013 21:43 MARSHALL28 wrote: i relate really well w/ your point about the world being one which marginalizes people who try to spread the wealth and make things better for everyone. i have more money than pretty much all my friends and its really hard to conceal that. i also like to do them favors and help them out if i can. at the same time ... i have to be constantly on guard for people realizing my situation and taking advantage of me for it. its super annoying.

/thread
+ Show Spoiler +

I once tried to teach some poker theory to my dad. He triumphantly told me that he makes his decisions based on the cards he's holding and not on this "range"crap and therefore all my maths didn't work. I see it as the same sort of thing in economics, sure people might suck at determining what value a purchase might actually bring but it doesn't change how they're currently valuing it. Fish don't break the whole model.

you should challenge your dad to hu4rollz

First of all, in most western countries, the politicians are controlled heavily by the media and education system. You have to follow the doctrine enforced into the minds of the masses if you're a politician or you get marginalized. You cannot say anything that is far too radical. like the reasons behind war for example, if you say that you'll get marginalized. (There's a good example of ron paul getting booed off a stage for argumentation against the war, that's an example of marginilisation) Or that the neoliberal economic polcies enforced everywhere in the world has shrunk economic growth and created vast inequality, the media would definitely say your crazy for saying that. But just look at the stats.

In new zealand it's not so bad, but i think britain/american attitudes have still has a huge influence over us. marijuana is still legalized here for example. It's interesting to question why it even got legalized here in the first place, it was because of class warfare that it was made illegal in america. So why here?

The way indoctrination- the power system works is that it empowers the people that do not question it, and marginalizes people that do. So the people who are most brainwashed will get to the top more easily. In america government is also controlled through funding of crazy freak shows called election campaigns.

if free markets are based on informed decisions then certainly none exist. Just look at advertising, it's designed to misinform you. If you watch some fast food advert the burger always looks better on tv than in real life. That doesn't inform your decision. When someone at AiG tells you a credit rating is AAA+ they are misinforming, for example. We are being constantly misinformed so we can make irrational decisions. I agree that government is corrupt in that in protects the rich and powerful, through bailouts ect. We can see this in america and europe. But to get rid of government is just to make the corporations the government-that's a lot worse because corporations purely run on the chain of command hierarchy. Most rich countries became rich through strong protectionism (not protecting the rich and powerful but protecting their developing industries) America, Britain are both examples. Japan spent a lot of years protecting toyota before it became profitable. But now i just see businesses like activision blizzard, controlled by some douchebag at the top who just wants to make a couple mill for himself in a year, and destroy the creativity of the company in the process, by forcing them to make sequels over and over.

The solution would be to try to introduce democracy into the workplace, especially the media and schools. Or to passively resist these institutions by not working, because then they would stop making money and collapse. the public should decide what gets taught, not just a few people. When schools are privatized their control gets given to the will of a few people. Our thoughts and attitudes are becoming more and more controlled by the will of a few people.

The world we live in is designed more and more to self destruct. global warming, slavery and extremely dangerous warfare is upon us.

Get ur facts str8. What the hell are these liberal policies u r speaking of :-| clearlymu have no ideanwhat it means

Free market canr exist coz ppl make bad decisions... So we need more democracy to solve problems, makes sense. Mediaare controled by ppl behind politics, not the other way., etc. Most of ur statemnets are twisted

On April 08 2013 17:22 Baalim wrote: the problem with the world is that most people are just plain idiots, this leads to having no introspection which leads to a shitty copied twisted moral compass which leads to suffering.

I think people are born with very creative minds, but then they just lose a lot of that creativity as they get older and its beaten out of their head. We are all victims of this, some more so than others.

On April 09 2013 04:03 dogmeat wrote: Get ur facts str8. What the hell are these liberal policies u r speaking of :-| clearlymu have no ideanwhat it means Free market canr exist coz ppl make bad decisions... So we need more democracy to solve problems, makes sense. Mediaare controled by ppl behind politics, not the other way., etc. Most of ur statemnets are twisted

the neoliberal polcies i am talking about are the ones that were enacted by Reagan/thatcher in the 80's, which libertarians advocate. and were enforced around the world with the IMF, WTO and world bank. (heavily controlled by the west) They slowed economic growth, and increased concentration of private power. Latin America has started to improve dramatically in terms of economic growth since it started resisting these polices.

In case its confusing i mean the libertarians of the modern age, post ww2, the ideas that young people are adopting. Not the libertarians of the 19th century who advocated unions in the workplace. (todays libertarians don't)

And yes we are losing democracy more and more because people have a larger voice when they are richer than others and can control the minds of people with private ownership of the media.

I was just rattling of a point that people make manipulated, often uninformed decisions in the market because of advertising and other lies. I wanted people to think about this but it doesn't really tie in with my main points.

On April 09 2013 02:32 Stroggoz wrote: First of all, in most western countries, the politicians are controlled heavily by the media and education system. You have to follow the doctrine enforced into the minds of the masses if you're a politician or you get marginalized. You cannot say anything that is far too radical. like the reasons behind war for example, if you say that you'll get marginalized. (There's a good example of ron paul getting booed off a stage for argumentation against the war, that's an example of marginilisation) Or that the neoliberal economic polcies enforced everywhere in the world has shrunk economic growth and created vast inequality, the media would definitely say your crazy for saying that. But just look at the stats.

as i said, media are controlled by ppl behind politics, education system as well b/c of government money. so you completely twisted this thing.
again you clearly dont understand what liberal means and you misplace liberal with fascist. neo-liberal is vaguely used term and basically doesnt mean anything

On April 09 2013 04:44 Stroggoz wrote: Show nested quote + On April 09 2013 04:03 dogmeat wrote: Get ur facts str8. What the hell are these liberal policies u r speaking of :-| clearlymu have no ideanwhat it means Free market canr exist coz ppl make bad decisions... So we need more democracy to solve problems, makes sense. Mediaare controled by ppl behind politics, not the other way., etc. Most of ur statemnets are twisted the neoliberal polcies i am talking about are the ones that were enacted by Reagan/thatcher in the 80's, which libertarians advocate. and were enforced around the world with the IMF, WTO and world bank. (heavily controlled by the west) They slowed economic growth, and increased concentration of private power. Latin America has started to improve dramatically in terms of economic growth since it started resisting these polices.

reagan was a huge retard and thatcher was a corporate whore, nowhere near liberal, surely as always there will be some wanna-be liberals praising them
http://mises.org/daily/1544
no liberal would be praising fascist organizations like imf and wto, are you insane?
only latin ameraca country doing good is chile which adopted truely liberal policies so wtf are you talking about?

On April 09 2013 04:44 Stroggoz wrote: They slowed economic growth, and increased concentration of private power.

basically since you dont know what liberal means, i assume you are against fascist policies (so am i )

On April 09 2013 04:44 Stroggoz wrote: In case its confusing i mean the libertarians of the modern age, post ww2, the ideas that young people are adopting. Not the libertarians of the 19th century who advocated unions in the workplace. (todays libertarians don't)

just wtf???

sigh... another socialist rant? :/ What that man said about the free market is absolutely correct.

If you think we need government because "people are bad mm kay?" than you have a very skewed view of reality in my opinion.

On April 08 2013 15:52 mnj wrote: Show nested quote + On April 08 2013 10:51 Royal_Rumble wrote: The wire is a piece of fiction and using it to show that the world is bad and man is evil, because of the actions of a few characters in there is a joke. incapable of any thought experiments? to stroggoz: great blog, i'm not sure if you skipped college, but if you did i think a major in economics would completely suit you as i think economics simply stresses critical thinking, cause/effect analysis. the contradictory logic concerning wall street: as you illustrated earlier in your wire example, it's extremely easy to have corrupt government leaders sacrifice the utility of society and increase their own personal utility. so for wall street, government regulation still would not be the appropriate antidote in order to solve the problem. one thing i want to add about wall street, is that very few people understand what wall street is, what it encompasses and what it entails. i can't help but feel as though it is such an easy scapegoat for anyone to simply take advantage of and pander to the masses. there's a lot of selling in wallstreet, since bull or bear market as long as people are selling/buying, wallstreet is making commissions but i dont see how this is different then any other industry where people charge fees or commissions for services or goods. individual human rationalism, this is the first premise of economics, that people behave rationally. the first and only assumption made in order to derive the whole science. i don't think it's that far fetched as 95% of the time we do in fact act rationally. there is a whole new exploding field of "behavioral economics" and this pretty much addresses the 5% of the time where people act "irrationally." i say "irrational" with quotations because economist like to think that they can analyze the "irrationality" and find its rational components however intricate and complex they may be. i HIGHLY recommend the book "freakonomics.:" despite its popularity and despite the fact that levin "sold out" in creating the book, it definitely illustrates what economists do. they look to understand and create models to forecast future events. it's all about finding the right data. lastly i think the smartest people are more inclined to be altruistic. i don't have data on this and i'm not quite sure how one could measure this, but i think if there are smart and capable people, they tend to realize how much of their work is due to their genes/environment and somewhat accept that nothing was truly of their "own" will power/efforts. And if they ARE in fact EVIL, then we are fucked anyways however when you have government regulations and corrupt officials all this changes, as its a war on the 'rich' or what i would like to think as the most capable, then we all lose. think of the US postal service. it went fucking bankrupt and had to be bailed out. they were giving out ridiculous fucking pensions and couldn't cover costs. this would never ever fucking happen in a private industry. think of your time at the DMV. think how inefficient it is and how literally half of the people working here would NEVER have jobs in the private sector. think of a number 2 pencil. think of how the wood required to make this pencil comes from 4 continents. how the metal piece of aluminum has come from all different regions. think of how many languages and country barriers these resources have passed through. all for what? all for a necessary tool that the people of the earth demand. that they want. now think of how the company that makes the number 2 pencil, how they are using all resources to the best allocation. how if they find a better supplier of wood for instance in country X, how they would use the more cost effective wood, and how that cost savings would be passed on to the consumers. economics maximizes the people's resources. if there is a shitty pencil factory, than it will go out of business because they couldn't make the same product at an equal cost. perhaps it was a higher cost. or they didn't have the best engineers in order to create more efficient manufacturing processes. they should go bankrupt. it's not in society's best interest to bailout or keep alive this inefficient entity. except this is EXACTLY what the government does. we shouldn't be producing NEAR the ammount of for instance, high fructose corn syrup. that industry is falling, and we the people, don't demand it. yet the corrupt government (just like the wire example) FORCE the demand, by PURCHASING EXCESS DEMAND with the PEOPLE's TAX MONEY. when i was in college, out of the 1000 peers that i encountered taking basic micro/macro economics as either a student or a TA, i can honestly say that maybe 10% of the people truly understood economics. i'm not sure why it is such a complicated topic, but it was extremely apparent how small a percentage of people understand economics. this isn't to say that 10% of the people got A's, but many of them got by through memorization.

To understand economics you need to learn a lot of stuff that is pretty hard to teach, human nature and the power structure stuff imo, is something i find very applicable.

Milton friedmans economics are wrong. Im assuming thats where you got the pencil statement from. (maybe my assumption is wrong, he made an argument on it somewhere)

He made some strong arguments but where he goes very wrong is that he doesn't realize that corporations act in the same way a totalitarian government does.They both have autocratic top down control. If government had minimal power,. other forms of power would run the world. Atm those forms of power are the corporations. There is no invisible hand guiding the market when the world is run by .1% of the population

On April 09 2013 15:58 Stroggoz wrote: He made some strong arguments but where he goes very wrong is that he doesn't realize that corporations act in the same way a totalitarian government does.They both have autocratic top down control. If government had minimal power,. other forms of power would run the world. Atm those forms of power are the corporations.

Governments by their very nature totalitarian in the sense that they use coercion to collect taxes as well as enforce liberty-restrictive laws that criminalize drugs, online poker, prostitution, etc. In the libertarian view, governments primary responsibility is to protect private property rights, and have a justice system that enforces people's right to their own "stuff." What is meant by "minimal government power" refers solely to SCOPE. It is to the benefit of all individuals participating in a free market for the government to have a strong justice system. If the government does fulfills that duty correctly, corporations cannot be totalitarian.

Corporations, unlike governments, cannot coerce you in any way shape or form. They cannot force you to buy their products. The only way they profit is when consumers make a choice to purchase the product because the product is worth more to them than the money they exchange. If corporations are mis-representing their product through false advertising or achieving sales through coercive methods, they should be brought to trial as appropriate. Also if you haven't realized it, the most corrupt and powerful corporations are the ones that are heavily subsidized and backed by the government.

There is no invisible hand guiding the market when the world is run by .1% of the population

I just want to clarify and ask what you think the "invisible hand" represents if would kindly respond. To me, it is the simply the result of the free, un-coerced choices made by all market participants. Aren't we both against totalitarianism? Then why are you okay when a government wastes tax dollars on something you may not support? Shouldn't a system where people are free to make their own decisions with the money that they earn be a beautiful thing?

Milton friedmans economics are wrong. Im assuming thats where you got the pencil statement from. (maybe my assumption is wrong, he made an argument on it somewhere)

You're calling Milton Friedman wrong based on what? Your high school level of economic understanding? I'm not trying to be disrespectful here but someone isn't "wrong" just because you disagree with them. But this sort of mindset aligns with most people who advocate for more government control. They think they know better than everyone else and they want to use government to force people to live a certain way.

I propose something else. No one knows what's best for anyone else. People should be able to live their lives however they want on both an economical and personal level. That's libertarianism.

@spicy.

i am advocating that if there will be a government, that it should be controlled by the people. My views are actually similar to that of an libertarian scoialist(or even anarcho sydnaclism), something that's been forgotten from history, which basically advocates minimal government control, and any sort of big institution should be controlled from the bottom-upwards instead of top down. I'm against illegitimate governments, and im against illegitmate corporations, which is 99% of them.

the invisible hand is something that is in the wealth of nations, written by adam smith. It is used to describe the self regulatory behavior of a market. But if you apply it today it's a bit of a joke.

milton friedman is wrong based on common sense. You cannot disprove that corporations are totalitarian, because it's obviously true. You know, if oil companies get together to buy out, crush any sort of competition from the electric car, is that fair? That's hindering progress. That's controlling people to keep buying oil.

You should take a deep look at how economies were regulated for countries that became rich in the past. America from 19th century-preww2. South korea from 1960-80, Japan ect.