Laundering $800 Mil in Drug $, How Did HSBC Execs Avoid Jail?

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Originally Posted by hippifried

Well, I don't know about y'all, but I'm still waiting for any kind of evidence that supports the egoist philosophy. If anything even remotely resembling a successful individualist society has ever existed, give me the where & when.

As for the ability to afford all this mythical "government largesse": All monies are coined by the state, & always have been. Money is merely an artificial concept to simplify barter. Nowadays it's nothing but numbers in a ledger, with a little bit of pocket change. We can crunch the numbers & afford anything we want. That's WE. Collectively.

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So government can print as much money as it likes, with no ill effects?

Good grief. Doing my damndest to avoid an ad hominem reply, and realising that I'll probably regret asking you this, but, um, have you considered why, if your proposition is correct, your government doesn't just print enough money to make you all billionaires?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Free market capitalism is a liberation ideology; without the state as it is today, your arguments lack a target -you are dependent on the critique of contemporary capitalism to enable you to constantly say what is wrong without having to tell us what life will be like after the revolution. You refer to violence in Greece knowing full well that it is extremist neo-Nazis attacking immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent, and is part of the unresolved ideological fractures of the Balkans that date back to the dissolution of Ottoman rule there and which have shaped the garganuan mess that modern Greek politics has collapsed into.

As a free market capitalist I know you think all immigration controls are wicked and deplorable, but the simple truth is that you cannot conceive of a free market capitalist alternative to what we have now without getting all confused about what role in your Eden will be played by nationalism, globalisation, climate change, modern technology and its impact on jobs -like the Trotskyist waiting for the transition you wish it all away with the pie-in-the-sky fantasy of a politics free of government and taxation, economic relations regulated by markets, social relations shaped by individual self-interest, the majority of people living in the sunlit uplands of prosperity and bliss.

Or, politics in which democratically elected governments are replaced by the tyranny of market forces; in which economic relations are not controlled by any regulations so that 'meat manufacturers' can sell diseased rats as 'chicken burgers' and respond to customer complaints -nobody is forcing you to buy my burgers! And social relations shaped by violence, slavery and contempt for human rights.

Free market capitalism is a utopian fantasy in which privilege and wealth replaces the Nazi party as the arbiter of life and death. In this system, if your father's business goes bankrupt taking your inheritance with it, you force your father to his knees, and order him to open his mouth while you piss in it, just as Ayn Rand would expect you to deal with such a loser. Better still, lock him and the rest of the losers in your family into a barn, and set fire to it -why should the world carry this extra, surplus-to-requirements, breadcrumb begging extra bagagge?

An Idaho senator has introduced a bill that would require all high school students in the state to read Atlas Shrugged -evidence of the controlling mentality, the venal hostility to freedom that free market capitalists are addicted to. The fact that he doesn't even take it seriously underlines the contempt with which free market capitalists treats democracy. Or maybe he is just one of capitalsm's useful idiots? And in such a crowded market...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2631414.html

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Free market capitalism is a liberation ideology? Er, is that a bad thing thing?

But ok, I'll bite. You think we're like the IRA or the PLO, and we believe once our enemy disappears all will be well. Not at all. As I wrote in an earlier thread, I don't dismiss the concerns of social democrats, I merely say that their (your?) cure is worse than the disease. And as for the comparison with a dreaming Trot, I suspect you're confusing the well-known inability of communists to agree on how to implement Marx's vision. Granted, there are disagreements between libertarians, but most of us either fall into the category of anarcho-capitalists or minarchists, and within those two brackets, we are generally agreed on the big things, in terms of practical constitutional and political arrangements. But that is not the same thing as being unable to describe how the world would be different were people freer. Indeed, in terms of mass population predictions, unpredictability is intrinsic to greater freedom. Jolly good, I say. Yes, there are predictions I'd venture, and maybe will if I have the time, but the absence of planning for entire populations necessarily makes such predictions speculative.

As to your claims about Greece, you'll have to refer me to a link in support of them. Otherwise I'll admit to being brainwashed by TV footage of general strikes, with petrol bombs being thrown and policemens' heads being cracked. Oh, and weren't some bank employees arsoned to death? Or were they merely Indian?

The stuff about Nazis and pissing is baby talk. And the Idaho senator seems rather to have missed the point about Rand's teachings.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Libertarianism does tend to be efficient. I have pointed to market failures in such systems but they're not easy to correct. However, I point to these market failures not just to show challenges to the efficiency of pure free markets but also individual inequities suffered in the process.

To say that a market system is efficient says nothing about how capital is acquired. It says nothing about how it is distributed. It says nothing about what happens to individuals who are victims of a market failure, say through lack of information, and end up serving as a cautionary tale for others heeding their signals in the marketplace in furtherance of this sought after efficiency.

We have to consider in this calculus what happens to the person who has his money deposited at a bank when there's a bank run. The reason the government insures these banks, even if it is inefficient in the long run because of the costs we've talked about, is because it is unfair for any one individual to pay for a failure with his life's savings. In free market ideology, we might assume that individuals would be able to pick the more responsible banks and so the person who loses his money does so because he was seeking a higher return by taking on more risk. The truth is, this risk is not priced very efficiently by the market and someone could lose everything through no fault of his own. Credit risk is notoriously difficult to value.

When it comes down to it, Libertarians want a competitive system and they strive for efficiency (an aggregate number), but they forget about the people who through no fault of their own lose out in the process. There are basic things people are unable to live without. In a free market system, economic losers would be forced to go without for the benefit of some aggregate utility function. Life is not so easily reducible to mathematical abstractions. A hands off system avoids unintended consequences, but accepts all of the easily foreseen and avoidable misery. To me, this is a pessimistic ideology that says let the losers lose because helping them share in the economic success might involve some waste.

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We don't strive for efficiency, we strive for freedom. Efficiency is a by-product, a secondary effect. That's the difference between, say, a Randian and a Hayekian. It's because we value freedom above wealth, because wealth is acquired but freedom inheres to us, that we accept financial losers in a free society are more desirable than slaves in a wealthy society. And I think most of us have greater faith in the willingness and ability of man, left unmolested, to tend to his own needs than is suggested by your label of 'pessimistic' which, it seems to me, is more properly applied
to those schools of thought emphasising man's helplessness in the face of the universe.

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Originally Posted by fivekatz

And in the world we live in companies like Goldman-Sachs, JP Morgan-Chase, Lehman Brothers, HSBC should be taken to the wood shed and the CEO's who either lead so poorly they hadn't a clue what was happening or led the charge, those dudes should spend some time in minimum security incarceration and that will create moral hazard.

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What would you have them convicted of?

Serious question. I know little of your law, but am struck by your use of the word 'quasi' to describe the legality of their actions. Either they were legal or illegal.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I'm for more regulation. I'm just saying that all regulation changes incentives in the marketplace. Providing insurance makes people take on more risk, but that's not a good enough reason for withdrawing it. It's a good reason to provide MORE regulation so that their new incentives are properly checked by bank regulators.

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Trouble is, you'll have to keep regulating to correct more regulatory failures, ad infinitum. You will never get it right.

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Originally Posted by fivekatz

Unbridled greed is at the core of capitalism and regulation is the bridle that allows it to survive without either it's taking itself down or the 99% toppling it.

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The people must be shackled for their own good.

In engines, motors, any system designed to perform repeatable cycles, including market systems, regulators are required to make systematic corrections on each cycle ad infinitum in order to maintain a proper balance of feedback and control.

Absolute freedom is absolute anarchy. Real and useful freedoms can only exist within a context of social restraints.

The current horsemeat scandal in Europe shows the need for proper regulation of business. Without that what might they try to get away with.

And regulation of the sales of weapons to terrorist groups? Not for the free market dreamers.

That way madness and the law of the jungle lies.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

The current horsemeat scandal in Europe shows the need for proper regulation of business. Without that what might they try to get away with.

And regulation of the sales of weapons to terrorist groups? Not for the free market dreamers.

That way madness and the law of the jungle lies.

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Um, "The Government knew last summer that a sudden ban on cheap British beef and lamb meant it was “inevitable” that unlawful meat would be imported from Europe. " (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/p...cle3687703.ece).

In other words, regulation caused the problem. Now more regulation is demanded to solve it.

There's no need to regulate sales of weapons to terrorists: a gun seller who sells a gun to a man whom he knows or suspects will use it for causing harm is aiding and abetting that terrorist and therefore already subject to the criminal law.

If the thermostat in your home malfunctions, you have it adjusted or replaced. You don't remove all thermostats from every home. Similarly with governors on steam engines and other sorts of regulators. Proper tuning and proper calibration keeps systems balanced and running smooth. A poorly regulated engine won't run at all.

A person who is not afforded the economic opportunity to succeed, lacks the freedom to succeed.

And when this religion fails you An8150, what next? Catholicism or Islam?

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Originally Posted by Prospero

And when this religion fails you An8150, what next? Catholicism or Islam?

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I confront you with facts which don't fit your narrative, and you accuse me of cleaving to articles of faith?

No your worship of the ludicrous ayn rand and the impossility of your creed manifest all the characteristics of blind faith

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Originally Posted by Prospero

No your worship of the ludicrous ayn rand and the impossility of your creed manifest all the characteristics of blind faith

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Okay, let's take it as a given that I'm some kind of nutter kneeling at the Randian altar. You can even imagine me sacrificing virgins thereon, if it makes you happy.

Now we've got that out of our system, let's go back to your narrative and my facts.

How do you reconcile the two?

I am bemused tHat you accuse me of doing what is a habit for you which is ignoring the acres of reason offered by many other folk here to pursue your idealistic agenda. For weeks I have ignored your postings as so much idealistic irrelevancy and will resume that position. Carry on without me. Sweet dreams..

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Originally Posted by Prospero

I am bemused tHat you accuse me of doing what is a habit for you which is ignoring the acres of reason offered by many other folk here to pursue your idealistic agenda. For weeks I have ignored your postings as so much idealistic irrelevancy and will resume that position. Carry on without me. Sweet dreams..

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Childish. Come on, give me an example of my having been offered facts that do not fit my narrative and where I have failed to address that issue.

Libertarians assert the market seeks an equilibrium that maximizes freedom. Yet they never define what it means to maximize freedom nor do they provide a proof that free market systems seek any sort of equilibrium. Anecdotes that suggest the obvious, that regulatory systems require constant adjustment, do not constitute proof that a system without regulation will do just fine; the persistent assumption that it will is tantamount to religious faith.

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Originally Posted by trish

Libertarians assert the market seeks an equilibrium that maximizes freedom. Yet they never define what it means to maximize freedom nor do they provide a proof that free market systems seek any sort of equilibrium. Anecdotes that suggest the obvious, that regulatory systems require constant adjustment, do not constitute proof that a system without regulation will do just fine; the persistent assumption that it will is tantamount to religious faith.

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We don't assert the market seeks an equilibrium that maximises freedom. That is precisely backwards. We assert that a free market tends to find equilibrium or, when unbalanced, that it seeks out equilibrium more efficiently than any other model. In other words, the freedom maximises equilbrium, not the other way around. I would go so far as to say there is no such thing as maximised freedom. There is only freedom, or degrees of servitude. I have defined freedom, on that previous thread. It is the absence of coercion ('coercion' as properly meant in English, not in some mangled and politically-motivated use of the language which equates working for a living with coercion). If you require proof that free market systems seek out equilibrium, you need only consider the law of supply and demand. You're right, however, logically that criticism of regulation does not necessarily mean that it's absence will work better; I have made no such persistent assumption. Indeed, my arguments have tended to shy away from the utilitarian in favour of the purely moral, because I happen to think that even if central planning, regulation and all the rest of it could be made to work in its own terms, it would still be undesirable. The reason I say that is because I believe freedom has greater moral value than utility, in terms of human happiness.

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We assert that a free market tends to find equilibrium or, when unbalanced, that it seeks out equilibrium more efficiently than any other model.

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Where is your proof? Von Neuman and Morganstern refute this claim.

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In other words, the freedom maximises equilbrium,

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This is of course the converse of what you claimed in prior posts. But never mind that, tell us instead what a "maximized equilibrium" is.

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It is the absence of coercion

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This is a ridiculous notion of freedom. What happens to a person who infringes upon your legally assured freedom if he is not coerced to recompense you in some way?

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the law of supply and demand.

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This law has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of equilibrium. It merely asserts that demand diminishes with price.

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Originally Posted by an8150

Free market capitalism is a liberation ideology? Er, is that a bad thing thing?

But ok, I'll bite. You think we're like the IRA or the PLO, and we believe once our enemy disappears all will be well. Not at all. As I wrote in an earlier thread, I don't dismiss the concerns of social democrats, I merely say that their (your?) cure is worse than the disease. And as for the comparison with a dreaming Trot, I suspect you're confusing the well-known inability of communists to agree on how to implement Marx's vision. Granted, there are disagreements between libertarians, but most of us either fall into the category of anarcho-capitalists or minarchists, and within those two brackets, we are generally agreed on the big things, in terms of practical constitutional and political arrangements. But that is not the same thing as being unable to describe how the world would be different were people freer. Indeed, in terms of mass population predictions, unpredictability is intrinsic to greater freedom. Jolly good, I say. Yes, there are predictions I'd venture, and maybe will if I have the time, but the absence of planning for entire populations necessarily makes such predictions speculative.

As to your claims about Greece, you'll have to refer me to a link in support of them. Otherwise I'll admit to being brainwashed by TV footage of general strikes, with petrol bombs being thrown and policemens' heads being cracked. Oh, and weren't some bank employees arsoned to death? Or were they merely Indian?

The stuff about Nazis and pissing is baby talk. And the Idaho senator seems rather to have missed the point about Rand's teachings.

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Setting aside my colourful use of language, the point is that you claim fidelity to a system that when it has been applied more closely to your principles -if not entirely- has not resulted in either economic equilibrium or greater freedom -the late 19th century in the US and the 1990s in Russia were symptomatic of the tendency of capitalism to monopolise the means pf production, anything rather than sharing it out -you can wish it away as 'the unacceptable face of capitalism' if you want to, but the evidence of dirty dealings amongst the railroad bosses, the bankers, the Rockefellers and Mellons of this/that world are well documented, and resulted in the haven of free markets, the USA introducing an Act in 1890 to prevent the dominance by single individuals and their firms of industrial sectors -ie the Sherman Act, even if not implemented until 1911. Your faith in the honest intentions of free market capitalists is as absurd as the belief of a Communist Party cadre in the wisdom of the Central Committee. And as for Russia, it was called The Sale of the Century for good reason, only the average consumer wasn't involved, merely screwed.

Perhaps we can agree that communism is the natural condition of mankind, that private property emerged historically as a consequence of the process of accumulation that began during the Neolithic revolution, and which combined with the division of labour to enable a minority of the population to dupe the majority into thinking they were superior, aided and abetted by religious/mythological systems of belief. Industrial capitalism is the private appropriation of publicly produced wealth -the capitalist who puts say £100,000 of capital into a shirt-making business and collects say, £1 million on that investment pays the people who actually make the shirts their equivalent share - £10, thereby proving that capitalism is immoral, and that private property is theft. Moreover, as Marx pointed out in Capital the workers are so completely subsumed by capitalism that they are both producers and consumers, and simultaneously exploited at work and in the market-place, bridging the gap between the natural price of a commodity and its market price -(viz Capital, Vol 1: Appendix: Results of the Immediate Process of Production, esp pp1019-1025 in the Pelican Marx Library, Capital, Vol 1; and same series, Capital Vol 2, Chapters 1-2; and Chapters 20-21).

This pseudo-debate however is going round in circles -perhaps you can explain how free market capitalism will produce economic growth and full employment in the UK, and crucially -what happens to the losers who fail at business, who can't hold down a job, don't have the education or whatever their problem is?

On xenophobic violence in Greece, I provide a link from HRW.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/30/x...iolence-greece

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We assert that a free market tends to find equilibrium or, when unbalanced, that it seeks out equilibrium more efficiently than any other model.
Where is your proof? Von Neuman and Morganstern refute this claim.

[Bully for them; criticism has, in my view rightly, been levelled already in this thread at appeals to authority. Proof is in the eye of the beholder. I made an assertion, I supported it by reference to the law of supply and demand. It's up to you whether you consider that law amounts to proof, although given your apparent incomprehension of the law of supply and demand, I don't expect miracles any time soon].

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In other words, the freedom maximises equilbrium,
This is of course the converse of what you claimed in prior posts [you'll have to throw a quote of mine back at me for me to know what you're talking about]. But never mind that, tell us instead what a "maximized equilibrium" is. [Oh, all right, Miss Nitpicky, equilibrium, then (although I was basically adopting your language), not 'maximised equilibrium'. I assume you're an engineer of some sort, but much as I admire the hard sciences I find your application of physical laws to government and human behaviour verges, bizarrely, on the metaphysical]

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It is the absence of coercion
This is a ridiculous notion of freedom. What happens to a person who infringes upon your legally assured freedom if he is not coerced to recompense you in some way? [oh, dear God.]

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the law of supply and demand.
This law has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of equilibrium [Sorry, you're just wrong]. It merely asserts that demand diminishes with price.

Not surprised by your response. Religious fanatics do eventually resort to shouting.

Look, demand (at price p) is defined as the number of sells you can make if the price of an item is set equal to p. It's practically a built into the definition that demand diminishes with price. If you fix the price at p of course you don't want to produce more than the demand at price p because it'll cost you to produce items you can't sell. And of course you don't want to produce less than the demand at price p because you can make more profit by producing and selling more. But this is not the market seeking an equilibrium point. There is no predetermined demand for a product that the market miraculously meets. It's merely of matter of determining the profit function given an estimate of the demand function, setting the price to maximize the profit and supply what would be the demand at that price.

There's no equilibrium seeking involved. Just maximizing profit.

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Originally Posted by trish

In engines, motors, any system designed to perform repeatable cycles, including market systems, regulators are required to make systematic corrections on each cycle ad infinitum in order to maintain a proper balance of feedback and control.

Absolute freedom is absolute anarchy. Real and useful freedoms can only exist within a context of social restraints.

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I like this post. You are regulating markets by having any system of enforcement. When you have strict liability for product defects instead of negligence you are regulating products, but just using the private litigation system. If you had a no liability regime you would simply have a different set of incentives; in that case the incentive to use no care whatsoever in production practices.

In the context of banks, the entire system of bankruptcy creates a regulatory regime that encourages excessive risk. The fact that we have limited liability of any sort encourages people to take risk knowing their downside is limited. When libertarians talk about de-regulation they are not talking about getting rid of the corporate structure or of making bankers personally responsible for their financial losses. They are talking about eliminating consumer protections and availing themselves of our liberal bankruptcy laws. But you cannot claim you are against regulation when you support the use of the corporate structure (a legal artifact) and allow companies to be run by CEO's who are not really accountable to the owners. It is the structure of the corporation that has created (or made more prominent) the principal-agent problem and necessitates heightened scrutiny.

In a fair fight the guy with the money will always win.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I like this post. You are regulating markets by having any system of enforcement. When you have strict liability for product defects instead of negligence you are regulating products, but just using the private litigation system. If you had a no liability regime you would simply have a different set of incentives; in that case the incentive to use no care whatsoever in production practices.

In the context of banks, the entire system of bankruptcy creates a regulatory regime that encourages excessive risk. The fact that we have limited liability of any sort encourages people to take risk knowing their downside is limited. When libertarians talk about de-regulation they are not talking about getting rid of the corporate structure or of making bankers personally responsible for their financial losses. They are talking about eliminating consumer protections and availing themselves of our liberal bankruptcy laws. But you cannot claim you are against regulation when you support the use of the corporate structure (a legal artifact) and allow companies to be run by CEO's who are not really accountable to the owners. It is the structure of the corporation that has created (or made more prominent) the principal-agent problem and necessitates heightened scrutiny.

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Simply put if a guy can make money selling rancid meat or throw it out at a loss, the meat will be sold unless some higher authority tells him not to. And once it is a corporation selling that meat, it is their charter and sole mission to enhance shareholder investment so by charter they should never throw away the rancid meat unless some regulating body says they have to.

Regulation and oversight happened not because of some conspiracy it happened because in its absence greed will make people do really bad stuff.

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Originally Posted by trish

Libertarians assert the market seeks an equilibrium that maximizes freedom. Yet they never define what it means to maximize freedom nor do they provide a proof that free market systems seek any sort of equilibrium. Anecdotes that suggest the obvious, that regulatory systems require constant adjustment, do not constitute proof that a system without regulation will do just fine; the persistent assumption that it will is tantamount to religious faith.

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Hence my reference to the egoist "cult". I don't say that about libertarians though. The distinction needs to be made between libertarian philosophical thought (since thought is involved) & the faith based ramblings of the various Ayn Rand institutions.

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Originally Posted by trish

Not surprised by your response. Religious fanatics do eventually resort to shouting.

Look, demand (at price p) is defined as the number of sells you can make if the price of an item is set equal to p. It's practically a built into the definition that demand diminishes with price. If you fix the price at p of course you don't want to produce more than the demand at price p because it'll cost you to produce items you can't sell. And of course you don't want to produce less than the demand at price p because you can make more profit by producing and selling more. But this is not the market seeking an equilibrium point. There is no predetermined demand for a product that the market miraculously meets. It's merely of matter of determining the profit function given an estimate of the demand function, setting the price to maximize the profit and supply what would be the demand at that price.

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What shouting?

If you try to sell your house for U$D200k, and it's on the market for six months with no buyers, then you've got the price wrong. Most likely the price is too high. Lower it, and you will find your buyer. Your ability to do so, and the result of finding that buyer, is the point of equilibrium.

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Originally Posted by trish

There's no equilibrium seeking involved. Just maximizing profit.

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They're not mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by hippifried

Hence my reference to the egoist "cult". I don't say that about libertarians though. The distinction needs to be made between libertarian philosophical thought (since thought is involved) & the faith based ramblings of the various Ayn Rand institutions.

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Talking about thought being involved, have you given any to my question?

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Originally Posted by fivekatz

Simply put if a guy can make money selling rancid meat or throw it out at a loss, the meat will be sold unless some higher authority tells him not to. And once it is a corporation selling that meat, it is their charter and sole mission to enhance shareholder investment so by charter they should never throw away the rancid meat unless some regulating body says they have to.

Regulation and oversight happened not because of some conspiracy it happened because in its absence greed will make people do really bad stuff.

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Depends if the guy finds a willing buyer for the rancid meat, fivekatz. If he does, they're both happy, they both got what they want. Who are you to say otherwise?

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Originally Posted by trish

In engines, motors, any system designed to perform repeatable cycles, including market systems, regulators are required to make systematic corrections on each cycle ad infinitum in order to maintain a proper balance of feedback and control.

Absolute freedom is absolute anarchy. Real and useful freedoms can only exist within a context of social restraints.

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A free market is not a system designed to perform in a particular way. Indeed it merits the designation of 'system' only in the loosest sense. Metaphorically, the comparison with a motor is flawed.

I suspect the word 'anarchy' is being used here, broncofan, to mean 'chaos'. They are not the same thing necessarily.

And social restraints are not the same as legal restraints. I'm a big fan of social restraints where they help condition our good behaviour.

A buyer clearly won't find a marketfor rancid meat undr normal circumstanes. Ony if he emloys duplicitous means to disguise it (ie packaging it in meat pies or disguising its state). So that is why we need regulations - health checks etc. A voluntary system will not and does not work when people are out to make a buck.

An the reason i didn't not respond to you was that i frankly can't be bothered to burrow into the details of your arguments when i know that your starting point is fallacious. You remind me, sadly, of the Trots who dominated Trade unions when i was younger and who tried to make their point of view prevail by endlessly debating protocols, rules, details rather than ever allowing the bigger issues be examined. In meetings which required a vote they often won because everyone else left or fell asleep.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Setting aside my colourful use of language [I let you off lightly, Stavros; if I'd done the same thing it would merely have confirmed my credentials as the resident swivel-eyed fanatic], the point is that you claim fidelity to a system that when it has been applied more closely to your principles -if not entirely- has not resulted in either economic equilibrium or greater freedom [for one thing, we work to different definitions of 'freedom', so I'm not sure how we'd measure this] -the late 19th century in the US and the 1990s in Russia were symptomatic of the tendency of capitalism [the same old sleight of-hand: you may feel nothing when repeating the words 'free market capitalism', it's up to you, all I ask is that you give words their plain meaning; the Russian oligarchs, to take one of your examples, were crony capitalists] to monopolise the means pf production, anything rather than sharing it out -you can wish it away as 'the unacceptable face of capitalism' if you want to, but the evidence of dirty dealings amongst the railroad bosses, the bankers, the Rockefellers and Mellons of this/that world are well documented [I seem to recall Rand wrote an interesting essay on this, possibly with Greenspan; if you're interested it's in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, which I don't have to hand], and resulted in the haven of free markets [interesting word that, 'haven', isn't it?], the USA introducing an Act in 1890 to prevent the dominance by single individuals and their firms of industrial sectors -ie the Sherman Act, even if not implemented until 1911. Your faith in the honest intentions of free market capitalists [I claim no such faith. I've said that I accept there will of course be sharp practitioners; they can be dealt with by the laws of fraud; what I do say is that rational self-interest means that party A maximises his needs or desires by fulfilling those of party B and I happen to believe that most people tend to act in good faith] is as absurd as the belief of a Communist Party cadre in the wisdom of the Central Committee [yet what is the difference between your planners and regulators, on the one hand, and the central committee, on the other? democratic legitimacy? maybe, but that says nothing of the efficacity of their decision-making, which is what we're talking about]. And as for Russia, it was called The Sale of the Century for good reason, only the average consumer wasn't involved, merely screwed.

Perhaps we can agree that communism is the natural condition of mankind [you mean that when Ugg and Grunt first crawled out of the primordial ooze feeling peckish and Ugg snared a frog for dinner, he noticed Grunt looking at him enviously and was confronted by the choice of sharing or not, realising that if he didn't then Grunt might try and take the frog from him by force, or that Grunt might starve and then he'd be left alone, or that by sharing on this occasion then Grunt might share the fruits of his labour subsequently, or that by sharing neither would have enough and they would both starve? Well the frog is Ugg's property. It is the fruit of his labour, although there is no rule of law to uphold property rights, and the land on which it was found has presumably not been claimed by Ugg. So I suppose I'd say that at this stage, we have a sort of hybrid, where property is literally up for grabs, but sharing, or perhaps bartering (part of a frog now, in the hope of a return favour later) is on the radar; but what if they both find a frog? if their frogs are of equal plumpness then all we have is the acquisition of property rights by each, absent the application of force by either to denude the other of his frog. The scenario can be sliced and diced a number of ways, but I rather doubt that Ugg, if he is initially the most successful scavenger, is going for any length of time to apply the principle of 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'], that private property emerged historically [I think the fact of private property emerged as described above, although of course the language would not have existed to describe it] as a consequence of the process of accumulation that began during the Neolithic revolution, and which combined with the division of labour to enable a minority of the population to dupe the majority into thinking they were superior, aided and abetted by religious/mythological systems of belief. Industrial capitalism is the private appropriation of publicly produced wealth -the capitalist who puts say £100,000 of capital into a shirt-making business and collects say, £1 million on that investment pays the people who actually make the shirts their equivalent share - £10, thereby proving that capitalism is immoral, and that private property is theft [everything belongs to everyone? so if we were in the same room together right now, and I walked over to you and started to remove your watch and car keys, you wouldn't stop me?]. Moreover, as Marx pointed out in Capital the workers are so completely subsumed by capitalism that they are both producers and consumers, and simultaneously exploited at work and in the market-place, bridging the gap between the natural price of a commodity and its market price -(viz Capital, Vol 1: Appendix: Results of the Immediate Process of Production, esp pp1019-1025 in the Pelican Marx Library, Capital, Vol 1; and same series, Capital Vol 2, Chapters 1-2; and Chapters 20-21).

This pseudo-debate however is going round in circles -perhaps you can explain how free market capitalism will produce economic growth and full employment in the UK, and crucially -what happens to the losers who fail at business, who can't hold down a job, don't have the education or whatever their problem is?

[That's a vast subject, and I don't have sufficient time to do it justice, but I'll make the obvious point that regulation raises barriers to entry in any sector of an economy. That means fewer people can start businesses.]

On xenophobic violence in Greece, I provide a link from HRW.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/30/x...iolence-greece

[Putting it politely, this link does not support your prior claim]

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an8150

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Originally Posted by Prospero

A buyer clearly won't find a marketfor rancid meat undr normal circumstanes. Ony if he emloys duplicitous means to disguise it (ie packaging it in meat pies or disguising its state). So that is why we need regulations - health checks etc. A voluntary system will not and does not work when people are out to make a buck.

An the reason i didn't not respond to you was that i frankly can't be bothered to burrow into the details of your arguments when i know that your starting point is fallacious. You remind me, sadly, of the Trots who dominated Trade unions when i was younger and who tried to make their point of view prevail by endlessly debating protocols, rules, details rather than ever allowing the bigger issues be examined. In meetings which required a vote they often won because everyone else left or fell asleep.

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If you mean that a seller won't find a buyer for his rancid meat under normal circumstances, except by duplicitous means, you may well be right. That's why we have laws against fraud. Have a look at some of broncofan's comments (esp. in the thread called 'Democracy'): he understands that what, in utilitarian terms, is at issue is whether regulation upfront is more effective than the deterrent of subsequent prosecution. I would add that in my view upfront regulation is, in any event, ultimately always reactive - as with the beef/horsemeat story: the failure of one regulation leads to calls for another.

You can't be bothered to deal with my details because my starting point is fallacious, yet I am the religious fanatic. Well, I'm content to stand by the record of my comments. I suspect I've answered a great many more points that have been thrown at me than any of my interlocutors have ever deigned or been able to respond to, and I've dealt with subjects on both macro and micro scales. Basically, you want a quiet life. You want people like me to go away and shut up so that you can carry on reinforcing your prejudices with others who broadly agree with you, and although you purport to take an interest in the affairs of the world, you don't want to have to think too much about them.

An - you are simply an idealist with no toehold on the reality of the world. I certainly DO deal with the reality of the world - and elements of it far darker and more dangerous than you have probably ever encountered. So stop being an irritating little fellow, please.

Laws but no regulations? Ha.

I will not be discussing anything with you anymore. Sorry. You are, by turn, insulting and foolish.

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Originally Posted by an8150

They're not mutually exclusive.

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in this case they are and I explained exactly why. If the market supplies exactly what can be sold at the price set to optimize profit, then demand is truncated by that price to meet the supply. That's not an equilibrium point the market optimally meets every ones's demands and everyone live in libertarian utopia.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

An - you are simply an idealist with no toehold on the reality of the world. I certainly DO deal with the reality of the world - and elements of it far darker and more dangerous than you have probably ever encountered. So stop being an irritating little fellow, please.

Laws but no regulations? Ha.

I will not be discussing anything with you anymore. Sorry. You are, by turn, insulting and foolish.

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In reply to your first paragraph, I'm tempted to tell you my height and occupation, but that would be indiscreet of me. I haven't begun to insult you, Prospero, not least because I am inclined to think it weakens the force of rational argument.

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Originally Posted by trish

in this case they are and I explained exactly why. If the market supplies exactly what can be sold at the price set to optimize profit, then demand is truncated by that price to meet the supply. That's not an equilibrium point the market optimally meets every ones's demands and everyone live in libertarian utopia.

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Call me a dullard, but I don't understand what "...demand is truncated by that price to meet the supply. That's not an equilibrium point the market optimally meets every ones's demands and everyone live in libertarian utopia."

The final sentence is almost certainly missing punctuation, but I am fairly sure that, even appropriately punctuated, what I assume is the contingent clause is a non sequitur. And I simply don't understand, in the first sentence, how demand can be truncated if the market has supplied exactly what can be sold. Another non sequitur, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

An - you are simply an idealist with no toehold on the reality of the world.

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I know that it is run by people who agree with you. And I know that you know that, because you have said previously that my views are unlikely ever to see practical implementation.