General economics discussion

#1
milohimself

milohimself

RIP CITY
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Sep 18, 2004
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#1
Wheres trut when you need him? I can't imagine anybody else here having read kapital or the manifesto in their entirety.
 
#5
#5
Probably not the best work of his to read. His insights are not economic, but rather in sociology and philosophy. Those are all in kapital, not the manifesto.
 
#6
#6
milohimself said:
Probably not the best work of his to read. His insights are not economic, but rather in sociology and philosophy. Those are all in kapital, not the manifesto.
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I'll admit I'll probably never tackle it. Reading the old economists is pretty painful. I try to diversify my reading so that I'm challenging my ideas. I guess I've been more than fair to communism since I haven't even read "The Wealth of Nations".

BTW, Bastiat is the one tolerable economist from the 19th century that I can stomach. He's easy to read and was way ahead of his time. It's amazing that society can't wrap our minds around his "broken window" fallacy even 150 years later. Case of "seen vs unseen" is timeless.
 
#11
#11
milohimself said:
Amazon.com: How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities (9780374173203): John Cassidy: Books

Been reading this. Worthy challenge to all you free market dogma dudes.
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Looks good. I'd be interested to hear his take on pollution, and his theory on "rational irrationality" but when he talks about stock market bubbles, and healthcare, etc. my brain will probably just shut off. We don't have anything remotely close to a free market with regard to those industries. Government was paying for 50% of health care even before Obama took office.

I am totally sick of people pointing to croney capitalism (only made possible through government regulation) and claiming the free market doesn't work. This is what government gives you when you let them "fix" market failures....more corporate welfare:

418351_10150578086724872_367822059871_8599392_960161749_n.jpg
 
#13
#13
milohimself said:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374173206?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1

Been reading this. Worthy challenge to all you free market dogma dudes.
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Will give it a read. I found one of the reviews had a compelling argument - the companion tome should be When Governments Fail since the implicit argument in the text is that government needs to regulate against the inevitable market failures. Ultimately, we need to know if the "cure" will be worse than the "disease" :p
 
#14
#14
Also, his explanation of rational irrationality visa vis game theory is fairly comprehensive and excellent.
 
#19
#19
milohimself said:
Forgive me for not paying attention to gibbs. I personally find that switzerland created an excellent solution.
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Speaking of which, I'm reading a book right now demonstrating that Switzerland and France cook the books to show better figures in terms of infant mortality. The author says the US has best infant mortality rate, and longest life expectancy when you exclude homicide and car accidents. We have been sold government HC under the notion that other countries pay less and get better results.

I'll probably make a thread about this later when I have the data in front of me. It's really interesting.
 
#20
#20
Link?

And infant mortality and life expectancy have to do with so much more than medicine.

We most definitely do lead in things like diabetes, obesity and resultant cardiovascular disease and such.
 
#21
#21
milohimself said:
Link?

And infant mortality have to do with so much more than medicine.
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That's what I said when we were comparing our figures to those of Europe. Same thing goes with life expectancy. Euros smoke a lot, but we are freaking obese, I think we take a lot of risks, etc.

The book is called Rollback by Dr. Thomas Woods. Chapter 2.
 
#22
#22
nbakerld said:
That's what I said when we were comparing our figures to those of Europe. Same thing goes with life expectancy. Euros smoke a lot, but we are freaking obese, I think we take a lot of risks, etc.

The book is called Rollback by Dr. Thomas Woods. Chapter 2.
Click to expand...

So to tie this back into economics... externalities, anyone? :)
 
#23
#23
Since we are talking HC - here's what I could get behind.

Very basic (I mean very basic) HC including basic catastrophic care.

Private insurance for those that want more coverage/better access.

Premium support for very low income to allow them to purchase private insurance if they so desire.

The biggest problem is that no one would agree to what "very basic" coverage should mean and then people would fight about differential care (which we already have) and there would be coverage creep to the point where we are paying for everyone's
Viagra and embryo implantation.
 
#24
#24
I'm for privatization in general and making the entire thing a consumer market. The only reason employer health plans exist was a market reaction during wwii. I still like the idea of care running as non profit. Include the individual mandate, subsidize people below certain incomes on a sliding scale a'la student aid, boom, no donut holes.
 
#25
#25
Ron Paul (a true free marketeer) saw government failure all around him and predicted the 2008 housing market failure in 2003. I just can't buy into anything claiming it was a free market failure. It was caused by government failure. BTW, Paul's warnings fell on deaf ears (obviously). That doesn't prevent his ideas from being labeled kooky.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgBODMioLo[/youtube]
 
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